AN UPDATE ON OUR INITIATIVES

HJTA Members and supporters have done a phenomenal job of collecting signatures to get two urgently needed initiatives on the ballot. While we had hoped to qualify both for the November 2022 ballot, the earliest the measures can be on the ballot is November 2024.

In this election cycle, constitutional amendments needed 997,139 valid signatures of registered voters, collected within a 180-day period, to qualify for the ballot. The precise number of signatures required is based on a percentage of the votes cast for governor in the last regularly scheduled gubernatorial election.

Our Repeal the Death Tax initiative collected over 402,000 signatures, and it was picking up momentum every week. Unfortunately, we reached our 180-day deadline before reaching the necessary number of signatures to qualify. Thank you to everyone who volunteered to collect signatures and to help spread the word. It was a brand-new issue to many people, and HJTA Members did an amazing job of educating the public about the death tax and why it must be repealed.

What’s next? HJTA is reviewing all the data from our first effort and all the options to find the best way forward. We have not given up on qualifying the Repeal the Death Tax Act for the ballot and fixing the part of Proposition 19 that is hurting so many families. This is an extremely important issue to our Members and to all California property owners.

The other initiative that HJTA has worked to qualify is the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act. The aim of this measure is to close loopholes the courts have carved in Proposition 13, which have made it easier to raise local taxes. In this effort, HJTA is part of a large coalition of business and taxpayer groups. The coalition collected more than 1.1 million signatures by mid-June and asked for HJTA’s help as it tried to get 300,000 more at the end, just to be extra sure there were enough valid signatures to qualify. Thank you to all the HJTA Members who stepped up to help collect signatures on very short notice.

The Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act had a turn-in deadline for signatures of August 2, which was too late to be on the 2022 ballot, but it can still qualify now for the 2024 ballot.

We will keep you informed of the progress on these efforts. You can also keep up with the latest developments by checking the websites for updates: RepealTheDeathTax.com and RightToVoteOnTaxes.com.