California's latest battle over taxes in the war between business interests and organized labor, represented by Republicans and Democrats, is gripping Sacramento.
By taking over as Assembly speaker, Robert Rivas becomes the first rural Californian in a generation to hold the powerful post in the state Capitol.Business and anti-tax interests have collected 1.4 million voter signatures and qualified an initiative for the November 2024 state ballot that would require, among other things, a two-thirds vote by citizens to increase certain local taxes.
The business interest ballot measure would return the rules to what they were before the court decisions: All special taxes would require a two-thirds vote.It would make raising state and local government fees a lot harder, and potentially categorize some fees as taxes. Proposition 13 required two-thirds votes for taxes in the Legislature and local communities, but itself was passed by slightly less than two-thirds of voters.
Under current law, the anti-tax initiative sponsored mainly by the California Business Roundtable can be passed in November 2024 by a simple majority of state voters. But if the Democratic ballot measure passes first in March, the initiative will require a two-thirds supermajority — probably too high a bar in a presidential election that’s bound to draw a high turnout of Democratic voters.
“Proposition 13 is still the third rail of California politics and people don’t want to go against it,” says Scott Kaufman, lobbyist for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., named after Proposition 13’s principal advocate.
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