California voters may have an opportunity next year to protect Proposition 13, making it more difficult to raise property taxes. 

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association submitted two ballot measures to the California Attorney General’s Office, the first step to prepare a petition to circulate for signatures to place them on the ballot next year. 

The backstory: California voters approved Proposition 13 in 1976, which capped the annual property tax at 1% of assessed value and only allows the assessed value to increase by a maximum of 2% per year. 

• Proposition 13 also made it so properties are only reassessed when ownership changes. 
• Last year the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association qualified the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act for the November ballot. That measure would have required tax increases to be approved by two-thirds of the Legislature and a majority of voters statewide. It also would have required special local taxes to be approved by two-thirds of voters locally. 
• But the California Supreme Court removed it from the ballot last year after Gov. Gavin Newsom filed a lawsuit against it, ruling that it would have been a revision of the California Constitution, which voters do not have the power to do. 

The big picture: Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association President Jon Coupal submitted two measures to the state on Monday, both of which are titled the Save Proposition 13 Act of 2026. 

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