Legislative Updates - Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association

As one of the largest grassroots anti-tax organizations in the nation, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association relies on the support of our Members, which allows us to influence legislation and protect taxpayers. Please use “Contact Your Representative” to the left of this page to urge your representative to support taxpayers when voting on the following important bills.

NOTE TO HJTA MEMBERS: For an updated status on any of these bills, please go to http://leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html and type in the bill number in the space provided. For questions regarding a position on a bill, please contact HJTA Legislative Director David Wolfe at david@hjta.org.

HJTA Position	Bill Number	Topic	Status	Author	Description	Location
Oppose	ACA 1	Local government financing: affordable housing and public infrastructure: voter approval.	Major Threat to Prop. 13	Aguiar-Curry	Lowers the two-thirds vote for bonds and parcel taxes to 55% and would undermine Prop. 13.	Assembly Appropriations Committee
Oppose	SCA 5	Taxation: school districts: parcel tax.	Major Threat to Prop. 13	Hill & Allen	Lowers the two-thirds vote for local education parcel taxes (created in 1978 thanks to Proposition 13) to 55 percent. This regressive tax will make it more difficult for existing homeowners to stay in their homes and keep prospective homeowners from buying.	Senate Floor

HJTA Position	Bill Number	Topic	Status	Author	Description	Location
Oppose	AB 11	Community Redevelopment Law of 2019.	Two-year bill, not eligible until 2020	Chiu	Restores the use of redevelopment via tax increment financing and revenue bonds that don't require voter approval. While HJTA does not necessarily oppose the restoration of redevelopment by local municipalities, property rights need to be protected. A proper finding of blight should be made before a redevelopment project area can be created. Any debt as a result of a project needs to be voter approved, and private property should not be taken for a private use.	Assembly Housing Committee
Oppose	AB 18	Firearms: excise tax.	Two-year bill, not eligible until 2020	Levine	Imposes a $25 excise tax on the purchase of a new firearm to fund competitive grants for the purpose of violence intervention and prevention.	Assembly Public Safety Committee
Support	AB 62	State government: FI$Cal: transparency.	Two-year bill, not eligible until 2020	Fong	Requires the entire state budget, including General Fund, special fund and federal fund expenditure data, to be posted online in an easy-to-read format.	Assembly Accountability and Administrative Review
Support	AB 435	High-speed rail bonds: water.	Two-year bill, not eligible until 2020	Fong	Repurposes the remaining unallocated bond dollars for high-speed rail that voters have approved in Proposition 1A to instead fund various Central Valley water projects.	Assembly Transportation
Oppose	AB 755	California tire fee: Stormwater Permit Compliance Fund.	Two-year bill, not eligible until 2020	Holden	Increases the California tire fee from $1.75 to $3.25 (an extra $13 for a new set of four tires) and directs the funds for stormwater compliance.	Assembly Floor
Oppose	AB 1217	Political Reform Act of 1974: campaign disclosures.	Two-year bill, not eligible until 2020	Mullin	Expands onerous disclosure requirements for political television advertisements to now extend to issue ads.	Senate Elections Committee
Oppose	AB 1468	Opioid Prevention and Rehabilitation Act.	Active	McCarty	Imposes an up to $100 million tax on opioid distributors to fund opioid prevention programs.	Assembly Floor
Support	ACA 7	Elections: initiatives and referenda.	Active	Kiley & Melendez	Removes the Legislature and the Attorney General from the process of providing ballot material content and transfers those duties to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO). Any hint of partisanship should be removed from ballot materials.	Assembly Rules Committee
Oppose	SB 246	Oil and gas severance tax.	Active	Wieckowski	Imposes a 10 percent natural gas and oil severance tax.	Senate Governance and Finance Committee
Support	SB 272	Fire Protection District Law of 1987.	Two-year bill, not eligible until 2020	Morrell	States that any large annexation should require a vote of the impacted property owners, including the taxes imposed on them.	Senate Governance and Finance Committee
Oppose	SB 732	Transactions and use tax: South Coast Air Quality Management District.	Two-year bill, not eligible until 2020	Allen	Authorizes the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) to impose a sales tax of no more than one percent on Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and most San Bernardino county residents.	Senate Governance and Finance Committee
Oppose	SCA 3	Property taxation: change in ownership: inheritance exclusion.	Active	Hill	Alters the intergenerational transfer provisions of Proposition 58 (1986) to allow for a parent-to-child transfer only in the event that the child claims the homeowner's exemption and decides to make the home their primary residence within twelve months.	Senate Floor

HJTA Position	Bill Number	Topic	Status	Author	Description	Location
Oppose	AB 116	Local Government.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Committee on Budget	Removes the voter approval threshold for Enhanced Infrastructure Finance District (EIFD) bonds. HJTA has long believed that any long-term debt should require a two-thirds supermajority threshold before being issued.	Signed by Governor
Oppose	AB 138	California Community Health Fund.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Bloom	Imposes a two-cent-per-fluid-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages at the distributor level, generating over $3 billion a year in new costs to citizen taxpayers.	Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee
Oppose	AB 142	Lead-acid batteries.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	C. Garcia	Increases car battery taxes on both manufacturers and consumers by $2 and makes these taxes permanent beginning in 2022.	Signed by Governor
Support	AB 289	California Public Records Act Ombudsperson.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Fong	Creates the office of the Public Records Act ombudsperson to oversee appeals of PRA requests.	Senate Judicary Committee
Oppose	AB 402	State Water Resources Control Board: local primacy delegation: funding stabilization program.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Quirk	Establishes a new regulatory program to support small water systems that may run afoul of Proposition 26 and the California Constitution. At best, AB 402 creates an expensive mandate that large water agencies and taxpayers will be forced to subsidize.	Senate Appropriations Committee
Support	AB 553	High-speed rail bonds: housing.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Melendez	Repurposes unallocated high-speed rail bond dollars to fund affordable housing projects.	Assembly Transportation Committee
Oppose	AB 570	Local Government Investment Act.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Aguiar-Curry	Implements the statutory provisions of ACA 1, a constitutional amendment that directly attacks Proposition 13.	Senate Floor: Inactive File
Support	AB 610	Elections: local bond measures: tax rate statement.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Obernolte	Changes the tax rate listed in the ballot pamphlet from $100 per assessed valuation to $1,000. Because home transactions often total in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, it will be much easier to determine property tax increases if the rate expression is changed.	Senate Governance and Finance Committee
Oppose	AB 618	Transactions and use taxes: City of Scotts Valley.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	M. Stone	Authorize the City of Scotts Valley and the City of Emeryville to increase their sales tax rate as high as 0.25 percent.	Vetoed by Governor Newsom
Oppose	AB 723	Transactions and use taxes: City of Fremont: County of Alameda.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Quirk	Allows the City of Fremont to impose an up to one percent general or special sales tax, and for the County of Alameda to authorize a maximum sales tax of up to one percent, thus exceeding the local Bradley-Burns two percent threshold.	Signed by Governor
Support	AB 777	Property tax postponement.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Patterson & Levine	Broadens the eligibility requirements for the senior Property Tax Postponement program, which helps keep seniors on fixed incomes in their homes.	Assembly Appropriations Committee
Oppose	AB 857	Public banks.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Chiu	Allows a local government to create a public bank using taxpayer dollars.	Signed by Governor
Support	AB 885	Property taxation: new construction: definition.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Irwin	Makes it easier to rebuild a home on its original site following a natural disaster.	Vetoed by Governor Newsom
Support	AB 930	California State University: executive compensation: campus budget quarterly reporting.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Gloria	Prohibits compensation increases for high-ranking CSU officials, except under certain circumstances.	Senate Appropriations Committee
Support	AB 1167	Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund: high-speed rail: forestry and fire protection.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Mathis	Repurposes the 20 percent of cap-and-trade money that goes to high-speed rail to instead fund wildfire prevention efforts.	Assembly Transportation Committee
Support	AB 1306	Political Reform Act of 1974: misuse of funds.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	C. Garcia	Expands the enforcement ability of the Fair Political Practices Commission to limit the spending of taxpayer dollars on political campaigns.	Assembly Appropriations Committee
Oppose	AB 1413	Transportation: local transportation authorities: transactions and use taxes.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Gloria	Authorizes the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) and the North County Transit District (NCTD) to impose additional sales taxes in unincorporated areas of San Diego.	Signed by Governor
Oppose	AB 1451	Petition circulators.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Low	Prohibits petition signatures from being gathered on a paid, per-signature basis.	Vetoed by Governor
Oppose	AB 1487	San Francisco Bay area: housing development: financing.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Chiu	Creates a new government entity called the Housing Alliance for the Bay Area (HABA), which would have the authority to authorize new revenue proposals.	Signed by Governor
Oppose	AB 1717	Transit-Oriented Affordable Housing Funding Program Act.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Friedman	Allows for the creation of vertical housing districts using tax increment financing from cities, counties and other governmental taxing agencies that levy property taxes. HJTA believes that any long-term redevelopment entity needs to achieve two-thirds voter approval before either approving bonds or engaging in tax increment financing, an amendment not included in this bill.	Assembly Appropriations
Support	ACA 3	Clean Water for All Act.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Mathis	Sets aside two percent of the General Fund to be designated to state water agencies and be spent on water improvement projects, groundwater clean-up and recharge, and infrastructure programs. With a $17 billion surplus, funds should be spent on water infrastructure, especially since one million Californians currently don't have access to clean water.	Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee
Oppose	SB 5	Affordable Housing and Community Development Investment Program.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Beall	Creates a new redevelopment program. HJTA has a longstanding precedent of opposing redevelopment- related legislation that allows bonds to be issued without voter approval and also doesn’t protect private property by allowing the expanded use of eminent domain to condemn property.	Vetoed by Governor
Oppose	SB 47	Initiative, referendum, and recall petitions: disclosures.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Allen	Imposes additional and needless disclosure requirements on petition circulators.	Signed by Governor
Oppose	SB 96	Emergency Telephone Users Surcharge Act	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Committee on Budget	Imposes a monthly surcharge, up to 80 cents, on cell phones and other digital devices that connect to the internet in order to pay for a new statewide 911 service.	Signed by Governor
Oppose	SB 175	Health care coverage: minimum essential coverage.	Signed as part of the 2019 State Budget	Pan	Allows California to implement its own version of the federal Affordable Care Act requirement, which was eliminated as part of the federal tax reform package.	Signed by Governor
Oppose Unless Amended	SB 268	Ballot measures: local taxes.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Wiener	Removes important information from the ballot label for special tax local elections, thus decreasing transparency.	Vetoed by Governor
Oppose	SB 293	Infrastructure financing districts: formation: issuance of bonds: City of Oakland	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Skinner	Allows the City of Oakland to establish an IFD to help finance infrastructure that would surround a new proposed baseball stadium for the Oakland Athletics. HJTA opposes this because we believe allowing an infrastructure finance district to issue debt should require a two-thirds vote.	Signed by Governor
Support	SB 598	Open Financial Statements Act.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Moorlach	Changes technology requirements to make it easier for taxpayers to search within municipal financial reports.	Vetoed by Governor
Oppose	SB 615	Public records: disclosure.	Taxpayer Victory or Defeat	Hueso	Makes it easier for government officials to avoid complying with the California Public Records Act.	Senate Judiciary Committee