Assemblyman seeks to repeal tax hikes

A Republican lawmaker outraged about tax hikes that his colleagues narrowly passed last month to repair California’s crumbling roads is trying to undo the Democrats’ legislative feat — at the ballot box.

Assemblyman Travis Allen, from Huntington Beach, last week launched a grass-roots campaign, asking for $5 donations and volunteers to circulate petitions on a website he launched, www.nocagastax. com.

“While we were unable to stop it in the Legislature,” he said, “I realized that through the initiative system, the people of California can have a voice in Sacramento.”

With numerous side deals and not a vote to spare, California legislators passed by a two-thirds vote a bill to raise gas and diesel taxes and vehicle license fees indefinitely. The roughly $5 billion raised annually will fund transportation projects such as repaving crumbling roads, stabilizing bridges and making transit improvements. The increases, which begin to take effect on Nov. 1 and stay in place indefinitely, will cost the average Californian an estimated $120 per year.

Senate Bill 1 was pushed by a powerful coalition of labor, business and local government groups, as well as Gov. Jerry

Brown. The effort to undo the law is far less organized. Allen calls it “grass-roots.”

“This initiative is not led by any special interests,” Allen said. “I paid the filing fee myself.”

The lawmaker said he has gotten an outpouring of support for the effort, but odds are long for initiatives that don’t have backing from billionaires or monied interest groups. To get the measure on the November 2018 ballot, Allen’s campaign needs 365,880 valid signatures from registered California voters, a bar exceedingly difficult to clear without an army of paid signature gatherers.

If the repeal measure lands on the ballot next year, it will be the first volunteer campaign to do so in California this century, said Steve Maviglio, a veteran Democratic strategist who specializes in statewide ballot initiatives.

“You need a sugar daddy,” Maviglio said, “and he doesn’t have one.”