California Supreme Court Asked to Review Tax Voter Initiative Case

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is petitioning the California Supreme Court to review its voter initiative challenge against San Francisco.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is petitioning the California Supreme Court to review its challenge to whether the two-thirds voter approval requirement under Proposition 13 and Proposition 218 applies to certain tax initiatives.

The California Court of Appeal for the First Appellate District recently held in the case that a San Francisco voter initiative to raise taxes did not require a two-thirds supermajority pursuant to articles XIII A and XIII C of the California Constitution. (see California Tax and Policy Report article.) The appeals court ruled that tax increases through ballot initiatives could be approved by a simple majority vote because they were actions by voters and not by local governments.

In its petition, Howard Jarvis argues that at stake in the case are the constitutional rights to vote on local taxes as guaranteed by Propositions 13 and 218, and the voter approval margin on a local special tax. Howard Jarvis argues that without Propositions 13 and 218, there is no right to vote on local taxes proposed via initiative. It argues that the voters that approved these propositions intended to require simple majority approval of all local general taxes and two-thirds approval of all local special taxes. “Specific to this historical reality, voters never intended to authorize a public official to lower the approval margin for a special tax from super to simple majority by cleverly rebranding a governing body’s tax proposal as a voter initiative.

A key issue in the case is the involvement of an elected official. Howard Jarvis stated that San Francisco “simply replicated the measure into a citizens’ initiative which became known as Proposition C. Proposition C was sponsored by Supervisor Norman Yee, and was publicly credited to Supervisors Yee and Kim.”

Howard Jarvis argued that “a large ‘hole’ has been cut in Propositions 13 and 218, allowing politicians to evade them by acting both as politicians and citizens. This will lead to more special taxes adopted by simple majority vote or no vote. Politicians can ‘lead the charge’ at these efforts as did Supervisors Yee and Kim here freely circumventing Propositions 13 and 218.”