Sacramento’s hit on taxpayer protection
The fight against new taxes in heavily overtaxed California is never-ending
That's why we support the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act, which earlier this year gathered enough signatures to qualify for the Nov. 5, 2024 ballot. Among other things, it would require voter approval for all new taxes proposed by the state Legislature; reverse court decisions that diluted the two-thirds requirement for approving all new local special tax increases; and end the flim-flam of imposing a tax by calling it a “fee.”
But voters might not even get a chance to have their say on the initiative. Last week Gov. Gavin Newsom, Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, asked the California Supreme Court to shove the initiative in the shredder.
In the main argument in the court filing, they contended, “Administrative agencies would lose the power to do much of the work they do today under legislatively delegated authority.” They cited collecting state fees for the disposal of hazardous waste, and local fees for trash collection or health care at public hospitals.
Erin Newman, a spokesperson for Newsom, said the measure “violates the Constitution by attempting to completely restructure our system of government.” But similar charges were levied against Proposition 13, the 1978 property tax limitation initiative. Yet it has survived numerous court challenges, including in the U.S. Supreme Court.
The lawsuit against the new initiative is flawed both procedurally and substantively, explains Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis
Taxpayers Association, a major proponent of the initiative. Procedurally, he said, the state courts over the decades have said the voters first should have their say on an initiative, with any procedural or other questions answered in court after the election. After all, if the voters reject it, then scarce judicial resources were wasted on a non-issue.
Substantively, Newsom and the others are arguing it is not an amendment to the state constitution, but a revision of the entire constitution, which is not permitted. “But this doesn't even come close to that,” Coupal said. “It doesn't really cut any tax. It simply imposes voter approval or ratepayer approval to any additional levy. So it's not a revision.”
As to the initiative supposedly impairing essential government services, he said, “That argument hasn't flown for many years.” Moreover, state and local governments now are so huge, “It's hard to argue that this somehow impairs them from getting revenue.” Indeed, taxes now are so high taxpayers are fleeing the state in battalions, actually reducing the tax base.
Newsom and the Legislature this year also placed on the November 2024 ballot Assembly Constitutional Amendment 13. It's specifically aimed at the new tax-limitation initiative and would make it harder to pass all tax-limitation measures. The tax-increase obsession of Newsom and Democratic legislators knows no bounds.
We urge the state Supreme Court to reject this spurious attack on the taxpayer protection initiative. Let the voters themselves decide their own tax rates.