Are California’s voters feeling taxpayer fatigue?
$15B state school bond and many Bay Area revenue measures failing
California in recent years hasn’t much looked like the state that birthed the 1970s tax revolt with Proposition 13 as voters opened their wallets for a host of tax and bond measures and packed the Capitol with Democrats promising to spend freely.
But this week the single statewide bond measure on the ballot seeking $15 billion for schools — a cause that has been historically popular with voters — appears short of the majority support needed to pass despite a $12.9 million campaign toward its passage. Locally, a number of tax and bond measures also were failing.
Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, founded to preserve 1978’s Prop. 13 taxpayer protections, was cautiously optimistic Wednesday that perhaps the worm has turned once again in the Golden State.
“It does appear as though there’s growing cynicism on the part of Californians with the representations that more money is needed,” Coupal said. “I think people are beginning to feel the stress of a high-tax, high-regulatory climate in California, and that may be reflected in some of the rejections.”
“I think people are beginning to feel the stress of a high-tax, highregulatory climate in California, and that may be reflected in some of the rejections.”
— Jon Coupal, president of Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association
Coupal said. “We’re relatively confident on Prop. 13 that we pulled out a victory. But we’ve seen this play a few times before where the initial election results are favorable to taxpayers and then it trends in the other direction.”
Locally, transit and transportation taxes in Contra Costa, Marin and Sonoma counties all were failing. Quarter-cent sales taxes in Marin and Sonoma counties to extend funding for their fledgling SMART rail line were well short of the two-thirds margin needed for passage, while Contra Costa’s Measure J half-cent sales tax wasn’t even mustering majority support let alone two-thirds, even though a similar 2016 measure narrowly lost.
In the South Bay, school bond measures in the Morgan Hill, San Benito, Evergreen and East Side districts were short of their 55% approval margins Wednesday. Parcel taxes in the Foothill-De Anza Community College, Campbell, Cupertino, Union and Oak Grove districts were short of their two-thirds margin to pass.
In the East Bay, school bonds were failing Wednesday in Dublin, Pleasanton and Antioch districts, as were parcel taxes in Alameda, Fremont and Union City.
In Santa Cruz County, school bonds for Cabrillo Community College and San Lorenzo Valley schools were coming up short as was a Soquel schools parcel tax.
There were certainly other bonds and tax measures showing more success Wednesday, including a San Jose tax on the sale of properties valued over $2 million for more affordable housing.
But this week’s results could signal voters’ appetites for revenue measures in upcoming elections may be waning, especially because the hotly contested presidential primary was expected to draw lots of interest among Democrats, who tend to be less tax averse.
The California Taxpayers Association issued a statement that voters “rejected at least 120 out of 236 local tax measures across the state, according to preliminary reports from county election officials.”
A key test of state voters’ thirst for new taxes will come in November, when foes of California’s landmark 1978 Prop. 13 — which limited state property tax assessments — back a measure that would remove its protections for most commercial and industrial properties, allowing them to be assessed at higher market rates and boosting taxes by some $12 billion a year.
Though Prop. 13’s popularity with homeowners had long made such a move seem politically unfathomable, California voters in recent years have shown growing willingness to approve taxes and bonds, particularly for schools, transportation and affordable housing, Tuesday’s results notwithstanding.
In 2018, California voters embraced $4 billion in bonds for affordable housing and $1.5 billion in bonds for children’s hospitals, only narrowly passing on an additional $8.9 billion in water infrastructure bonds while rejecting a gas tax repeal.
In 2016 state voters overwhelmingly approved extending higher income taxes along with a sales tax hike in 2012 and $7 billion in school bonds. Before that, they approved school bond measures in 2006, 2004, 2002 and 1998.
They also approved nearly $10 billion in bonds in 2008 for a high-speed rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles that remains nowhere near completion with a price tag that has soared to $80 billion.
Alex Stack, communications director for the Schools and Communities First campaign for the November initiative to raise taxes on commercial and industrial property, isn’t worried about voters’ sentiment. If Tuesday’s Prop. 13 school bond does indeed fail, it would only be because the ballot designation misled or confused voters into thinking it had something to do with the original 1978 Prop. 13, Stack said.
Polling, Stack said, still shows voter support for the November property tax measure, which Coupal’s taxpayer association opposes.
“A lot of folks didn’t understand what they were voting on,” Stack said of this week’s Prop. 13. “Voters are ready to close corporate tax loopholes to reclaim $12 billion every year for our schools and local communities, and it’s clear that Californians want a long-term solution instead of BandAid fixes every year.”