Will California Supreme Court knock anti-tax measure off the November ballot? | Walters
When California’s voters 46 years ago passed Proposition 13, its iconic property tax limit, they ignited a perpetual conflict over how much tax money state and local governments need and who should supply it. Since 1978, public employee unions and other beneficiaries of government spending have repeatedly tried to repeal Prop. 13’s barriers and make it easier to enact new taxes. At the same time, business interests and anti-tax groups such as the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, named for Prop. 13’s chief sponsor, have backed additional ballot measures to make new taxes more difficult. As the conflict raged, pro-tax interests became dominant in the Capitol and in local governments, but the anti-tax faction mostly prevailed in post-Prop. 13 ballot battles. In 2020, for example, voters rejected a union-sponsored ballot measure that would have changed Prop. 13 to allow higher taxes on commercial real estate. Concurrently, California courts have eroded some of the taxation barriers the anti-tax forces erected. In 2020, the state Supreme Court made raising local taxes easier by declaring that tax measures proposed by initiative needed only simple majority voter approval, rather than two-thirds. The nearly half-century