Former Cupertino mayor is No on Measure A
Steven Scharf, past mayor of Cupertino and a Democrat of 51 years, notes that Supe Ellenberg's arguments in favor of the county's sales tax hike are full of inaccuracies.
On September 8th, 2005, I heard Santa Clara County Supervisor Susan Ellenberg speak at a meeting of a progressive Democratic organization of which I am a member.
A combination of a) being involved in politics (former city council member and mayor), b) a healthy dose of cynicism, c) a college course in "The Language of Argument" (textbook at Amazon), and d) Toastmasters, has made me listen very carefully when someone is speaking, especially when they're lobbying for something.
I was counting Ellenberg’s misstatements. It was incredible and disheartening to hear an elected official make so many misstatements. But most of the audience was eating it up!
The first misstatement was that a 2025 special election was mandatory to elect a new Tax Assessor ─ this was untrue since the Board of Supervisors (BOS) could have continued with the appointed interim Tax Assessor until the 2026 General Election.
The BOS jumped at the chance to hold a special election for Tax Assessor, using that election as a justification to get Measure A on the ballot by insisting that there was no extra expense for the Measure A election. Since Medicaid cuts don’t take effect until 2027, they could have put a tax measure, specifically for the County health care system, on the 2026 ballot.
The second misstatement was that the only tax measures that the BOS can place on the ballot are sales taxes. This is untrue. They can also put parcel taxes on the ballot, and have done so numerous times.
The third misstatement was about how General Sales Taxes can be used. These taxes can be used for anything the County decides, they aren’t required to be used for health care. Ellenberg rationalized that since the County Hospitals are 55% of the county’s budget, that whatever sales tax is collected will be used to fund the hospital system.
The fourth misstatement was that this was an immediate crisis.The Medicaid cuts in the “Big Terrible Bill” are terrible, but they don’t occur until 2027. There is time to put a well-crafted tax measure, specifically to fund health care, on the 2026 ballot.
There were also several other half-truths regarding how the County ended up essentially becoming a health care system, operating four hospitals, adding three in the past five years.
Ellenberg did admit that sales taxes are regressive, but tried to dismiss that concern by explaining that things like food are not subject to sales tax, and that a reduction in health care would be much more regressive than a sales tax. She had a canned, and well-rehearsed answer for everything.
To someone unfamiliar with how elections, tax measures, Medicaid, the County hospitals, and politics work, Ellenberg was convincing. You can’t expect the average voter to understand all of this, they don’t have the background; they are not stupid, they are just easily duped ─ that’s what the Board of Supervisors is counting on.
Here’s the bottom line:
The issue isn’t if the County hospitals will need funding to offset the 2027 Medicaid cuts, they will. The issue is if a regressive, general sales tax increase, is a fair solution to provide that funding ─ it isn’t.
With general sales taxes there’s no guarantee that all of the revenue, or even the majority of the revenue, will go to VMC, indeed that would be illegal because of the way it was put on the ballot. Special interests are already demanding a cut of Measure A revenue for their own pet programs. Edit: on October 1st 2025 it was reported that some Measure A money will also be used for public safety, it’s not going just to fund the County health care system. Apparently, this was a condition of getting support for Measure A from San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, and from the County District Attorney.
The County rushed Measure A onto the ballot in a costly, off-year, special election, with little public notice. The County also opted into the ½%, 2026, sales tax measure for transit (SB-63). If both measures pass this would bring sales taxes up to a high of 11%.
Why a sales tax? Because corporate lobbying groups oppose taxes that impact their corporate members ─ county elected officials succumbed to the pressure and went along. There likely would have been enormous pushback from the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, YIMBY groups, the California Apartment Association, the Bay Area Council, etc., if a tax that burdened businesses, more than individuals, had been proposed.
There are better funding alternatives to address the Medicaid cuts. No one likes new taxes, but voters do support taxes that they believe are fair and equitable ─ sales taxes are neither, they hit low and middle income residents the hardest.
The County can put parcel taxes on the ballot. And they can do per-square-foot parcel taxes instead of a flat amount per parcel, regardless of the size (Berkeley has done this with their BSEP tax) ─ but corporate interests and apartment building owners would scream bloody murder!
There is also the deeper question as to whether the County should be operating such a huge health care system. When the County purchased O’Connor and Saint Louise hospitals, County Executive Jeff Smith stated "Under the worst-case scenario, the new hospitals acquired from Verity would put the system another $5-$7 million in the red; under the best case, they bring in roughly the same amount." Obviously he was either clueless or lying. Regardless, it would take years to reduce the size of the County Hospital System and a funding solution is needed by 2027.
Note that Los Angeles County's budget for their public hospitals is about $10.4 billion, about 21% of their county’s budget. Santa Clara County’s budget for our public hospitals is about $7.5 billion, about 55% of the budget. Los Angeles County has about 500% the population of Santa Clara County, but is spending only about 39% more than Santa Clara County on their hospital system. Something needs to change.
We are supposed to be progressives, advocating for equity, fairness, and to have wealthy individuals and corporations pay their fair share.We support health care, but highly regressive taxes aren’t the way to pay for it. There is still time for the County Board of Supervisors to put a much fairer tax scheme on the ballot before the 2027 Medicaid cuts take effect. Hopefully Measure A will fail and then they can come up with a better alternative.
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