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 Floor |
| 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 new ones from buying in. | Senate Floor |
| HJTA Position | Bill Number | Topic | Status | Author | Description | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oppose | AB 11 | Community Redevelopment Law of 2019. | Active | Chiu | Restores the use of redevelopment via tax increment financing and revenue bonds that dont 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 Local Government Committee |
| Oppose | AB 18 | Firearms: excise tax. | Active | Levine | Imposes a $25 excise tax on the purchase of a new firearm to fund competitive grants for the purpose of violence intervention and prevention. | Assembly Appropriations Committee |
| Support | AB 62 | State government: FI$Cal: transparency. | Active | 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. | Active | 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 |
| 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 |
| Oppose | AB 1860 | Local government finance: special taxes: homeless housing and services. | Active | Santiago | AB 1860 would authorize local governments to impose, increase or extend a two-thirds vote sales and use tax to support homeless housing and services. | Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee |
| Oppose | AB 1905 | Housing and Homeless Response Fund: personal income taxation: mortgage interest deduction. | Active | Chiu | Eliminates the mortgage interest deduction for nonprimary residences, including second homes. This tax increase would fund affordable housing and homelessness programs. | Assembly Housing Committee |
| Support | AB 2013 | Property taxation: new construction: damaged or destroyed property. | Active | Irwin | Allows for a safe harbor of 120 percent of the value of the property only as a "reconstructed improvement." Individuals and families facing the calamity of a natural disaster should not be forced to pay higher property taxes if they choose to reconstruct on their original home site. | Assembly Appropriations Committee |
| Support | AB 2155 | Public officers: contracts: prohibited interests. | Active | Obernolte | Gives California taxpayers legal standing to sue over the validity of municipal bond issuances. | Assembly Judiciary Committee |
| Oppose | AB 2296 | State Water Resources Control Board: local primacy delegation: funding stabilization program. | Active | Quirk | Creates a new regulatory program to assist local primacy agencies (LPAs). This could lead to taxpayers across California seeing their water rates increase. | Assembly Appropriations Committee |
| Oppose | AB 2466 | California Community Health Fund. | Active | 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 |
| Support | AB 2528 | Sales and use taxes: income taxes: written advice. | Active | Diep & Gipson | Current law allows a taxpayer to request written advice on tax issues from tax agencies. However, there is no requirement in current law for CDTFA to get back to taxpayers in a timely manner. AB 2528 promotes commonsense transparency by stating that CDTFA and FTB need to send an acknowledgment letter within 30 days of receiving the taxpayers request and provide the written advice response within six months. | Assembly Appropriations Committee |
| Oppose | AB 2570 | False Claims Act. | Active | Stone | Broadens the False Claims Act to allow the state attorney general to pursue PAGA like civil lawsuits against companies who allegedly committed tax fraud. | Assembly Appropriations Committee |
| Oppose | AB 2712 | California Universal Basic Income (CalUBI) Program. | Active | Low | Creates a California Universal Basic Income (UBI) Program in which every California resident over 18 years of age receives $1000 per month. The bill states that the UBI will be funded by proposing a ten-percent value-added tax on most goods and services. | Assembly Human Services Committee |
| Oppose | AB 2843 | Local employer affordable housing fees: Affordable Housing Assistance Fund. | Active | Chiu | Requires any applicant for a local business license to pay a head tax ranging from $75 per person for 200-999 employees and $150 per person for businesses employing more than 1,000 people. Revenue from the tax would go to fund various housing relief programs. | Assembly Local Government Committee |
| Oppose | AB 3001 | School district and community college district bonds: school facilities. | Active | Bauer-Kahan | AB 3001 would broaden the potential uses of a Proposition 39 school bond to now include, among other things, streets, parking, some types of school buses, fire damage, or alterations to a school building beyond routine maintenance. HJTA believes this bill deviates from the historical practice of appropriate bond debt spending that includes calculations of life cycle costs. | Assembly Education Committee |
| Oppose | AB 3256 | Economic Recovery, Wildfire Prevention, Safe Drinking Water, Drought Preparation, and Flood Protection Bond Act of 2020. | Active | E. Garcia | Enacts a nearly $7 billion climate General Obligation bond that may be on the November 2020 ballot. | Assembly Appropriations Committee |
| Support | AB 3278 | High-Speed Rail Authority: passenger train service. | Active | Patterson | Proposition 1A (2008) contained a prohibition on operating subsidies for high-speed rail. However, it was always assumed that this provision only applied to the California High-Speed Rail Authority (HSRA). AB 3278 expands the definition to state that the prohibition applies to any service provided directly by HSRA or a third party contracted by the Authority. | Assembly Appropriations Committee |
| 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 | ACA 24 | Legislature: benefits and retirement. | Active | Low | ACA 24 removes the ability of the independent California Citizens Compensation Commission to set salary and other benefits for members of the Legislature. It would instead require that the total monetary value of those benefits be equal to those of a legislative employee. It also allows a new member of the Legislature to enroll in CalPERS. | Assembly PERS 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. | Active | 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 |
| Support | SB 934 | Corporate taxes: exempt organizations: filing fees. | Active | Bates | Current law imposes a $25 fee upon certain tax-exempt entities as well as a $10 annual information return filing fee. SB 934 would eliminate both fees under the corporate tax law. | Senate Governance & Finance Committee |
| Support | SB 1319 | Property taxation: change in ownership. | Active | Bates | Alters the definition of "change of ownership" in the Revenue and Tax Code for purposes of determining the property tax base value of commercial property. | Senate Governance & Finance Committee |
| Oppose | SB 1349 | Transactions and use taxes: County of Contra Costa. | Active | Glazer | Allows Contra Costa County to authorize a maximum sales tax of up to 0.5 percent, thus exceeding the two percent threshold. | Senate Governance & 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 homeowners 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 | 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 | 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 to $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 Judiciary 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 |
| 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 $1000. 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 |
| 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 Newsome |
| 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-speedÿrail: forestry and fire protection. | Taxpayer Victory or Defeat | Mathis | Repurpose the 20 percent of cap-and-trade money that goes to high-speed rail to instead fund wildfire prevention efforts. | Assembly Transportation |
| 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 |
| 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 for bonds to be issued without voter approval, and also doesn?t protect private property by allowing for 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 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 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 |