Back in 2023, the tax-raisers had a plan.
The California Legislature passed Assembly Constitutional Amendment 1 (ACA 1), an attack on Proposition 13 that would have made it easier to raise taxes. ACA 1 would have cut the vote needed to pass local bonds and special taxes from 66.7% to 55%.
Constitutional Amendments require the approval of a majority of the state’s voters, and that’s where the tax-raisers’ plan first hit a bump in the road. Polling showed that voters would not approve ACA 1. At the eleventh hour before the deadline for the 2024 ballot, the tax-raisers rewrote the measure by passing ACA 10.
The new version lowered the vote threshold needed to pass local bonds but left the two-thirds vote requirement in place for local special taxes. “Sometimes you have to settle for half a loaf in this business,” said ACA 1’s author, Assembly Member Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, speaking during a webinar with supporters in Sacramento.
The revised ACA 1 went on the November ballot as Proposition 5, and voters rejected it by 10 percentage points. Thanks to the Members of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, HJTA’s Protect Prop. 13 Committee was able to lead a successful campaign to defeat Prop. 5, preventing the surge of higher property taxes that would have been unleashed by a torrent of new local bonds in future elections.
But the tax-raisers remain undeterred.
In February, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that a poll commissioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) tested support for three potential tax increases for transit that could go on the 2026 ballot.
One proposal called for a one-half-percent sales tax increase in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco and San Mateo counties for ten years. A second proposal would lengthen the duration of the sales tax increase to 11 years and increase the tax in San Francisco even higher. A third plan would raise the sales tax in all nine Bay Area counties by one-half percent and also impose a new parcel tax of up to $100 per 1,000 square feet of homes and other buildings.
According to the poll, these proposals had the support of 54%, 55% and 44% of likely voters. But in order to pass, these taxes would need a two-thirds vote, 66.7%, because the revenue is earmarked for a specific purpose. Proposition 13 requires a two-thirds vote for special taxes.
Still, the tax-raisers are not giving up. MTC Commissioner Rebecca Kaplan told the Chronicle that the tax increase would require only a 50% majority to pass if members of the public sponsor it as a citizens’ initiative.
This is the infamous “Upland” loophole, carved into your Prop. 13 taxpayer protections by the California Supreme Court in 2017. In California Cannabis Coalition v. City of Upland, the justices hinted, without actually deciding, that the state constitution (including Prop. 13) does not apply to measures that are put on the ballot by a citizens’ initiative instead of by the vote of a government body.
The “Upland” loophole would have been closed by the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act, our fully qualified initiative that was removed from the 2024 ballot by the same state Supreme Court.
It’s more urgent than ever to close that loophole. HJTA is working on another proposed ballot initiative to restore your rights under Proposition 13. Be sure to sign up for email alerts, if you haven’t already, at HJTA.org.