☆ Coupal: taxpayers hoped CA courts would protect Prop 13. They didn’t. Can voters now stop runaway taxes?
A scaled-down measure to Save Prop 13 could make it on the CA ballot this year, says Jon Coupal. It would repeal real estate transfer taxes above .11%, and raise the bar for local special taxes to a 2/3 majority vote. In this Opportunity Now exclusive 2026 forecast, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association President fears CA politicians will continue to manipulate the ballot process and drive cities toward bankruptcy.
For citizen taxpayers, the greatest opportunity is the potential to repair the damage inflicted to Proposition 13 by the progressive political establishment, including the ever increasingly liberal California judiciary. After last year’s incomprehensible decision by the California Supreme Court to remove a duly qualified initiative measure from the ballot, taxpayers have regrouped and now support a scaled down tax reform measure. The Local Taxpayer Protection Act to Save Prop. 13 would repeal all real estate transfer taxes higher than 0.11%, as well as re-establishing the requirement for a two-thirds vote to raise all local special taxes. Only by passing the Local Taxpayer Protection Act to Save Proposition 13 can Californians stop the coming onslaught of higher local taxes.
(Registered voters in California can sign the petition by going to SaveProp13.com and easily printing it on one sheet of letter-size paper, or by requesting to have the petition mailed to them.)
Our greatest fear for 2026 is that politicians will continue to manipulate the ballot process by spending taxpayer dollars on political advocacy, writing biased ballot material to favor tax increases, and otherwise thwart election processes to suppress conservative voices. We also fear that unrestrained spending by elected progressive officials will push California and countless local governments to the brink of bankruptcy and otherwise thwart the collective will of the citizens who actually pay the bills.
As for predictions, the coming 2026 election will be better for conservatives than many pundits currently believe.
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