Pigs fly: CA legislature advances vote on 2/3 tax threshold

 
 

Just weeks after the SJ City Council harrumphed their opposition to the Local Taxpayers' Act initiative, Gov. Newsom and huge majorities in CA Senate and Assembly voted to forge ahead on the initiative's key element: new local taxes should require a 66% majority. Jon Coupal of Howard Jarvis Taxpayers' Ass'n explains the key recent developments below.

  • With just hours to go before the deadline to finalize the ballot, the governor’s office and the Legislature reversed their previous stance and offered us their full support for the two-thirds vote requirement to pass special taxes. They passed a legislative constitutional amendment, ACA 22, that would close the “Upland” loophole once and for all.

  • On Thursday afternoon, ACA 21 was passed to remove the “poison pill” from the November ballot and clear the way for the Local Taxpayer Protection Act to be approved by a majority of voters. 

  • As a result of these developments, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has agreed to withdraw its original initiative from the ballot. Instead, voters will have the opportunity to pass the Local Taxpayer Protection Act as ACA 22, soon to have a proposition number for November.

--Edited comments from Coupal's op-ed in the Daily News. Read the whole thing here.

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