Californians will sort through competing ballot measures come November 2024. One measure would amend the California constitution to decrease the voter threshold required to pass local bonds and levies. Another, qualified to the ballot by the California Business Roundtable, will require voters to approve any state and local tax increases passed by the Legislature and require a two-thirds approval margin for new local taxes.
A constitutional amendment that would lower the bar for voters to approve new taxes and bond measures to fund housing and public infrastructure is heading to the 2024 general election ballot after passing the Legislature.
California currently requires two-thirds of voters to approve local levies, and local governments have complained for years that the threshold is too high. Berkeley, for example, failed to pass a $650 million bond last year to build affordable housing and repair city infrastructure, despite approval from nearly 60% of voters.
The Amendment, ACA-1, would lower the voter threshold on local levies to a 55% voter approval. To pass, it required a two-thirds majority in both houses of the Legislature, which came Thursday on the final day of the current session in Sacramento, with Republicans voting in opposition.
The League of California Cities, which lobbied for the change in Sacramento, said that the change will make it easier for cities to address ongoing housing and infrastructure issues.
The amendment “is an important tool for local governments to address affordable and supportive housing, as well as critical infrastructure that our residents desperately need and deserve,” said Carolyn Coleman, executive director of Cal Cities. The amendment also drew support from labor groups and pro-housing groups.
Tax and business groups fought against the change, contending it will pave the way for cities to levy additional taxes in a state where the cost of living is already too high.
“We’re going to improve housing affordability by increasing the cost of housing by saddling it with more taxes?” asked Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers’ Association. “This is very strange logic.”
The California Business Roundtable made its own push for tax reform this year, sparking a flurry of political gamesmanship between business interests and labor unions that voters will have to sort through next year.
In March, the business coalition persuaded lawmakers to approve a measure for the 2024 ballot that would require voters to approve any state and local tax increases passed by the Legislature and require a two-thirds approval margin for new local taxes.
Over the summer, in response, Democratic lawmakers and labor activists drafted a constitutional amendment of their own, ACA-13. The measure, which also passed Thursday, gives the coalition a taste of its own medicine, by requiring any measure that changes voter thresholds to pass by that same amount, rather than the usual 50% needed to pass a ballot initiative. That means that a measure raising the vote to a two-thirds approval would itself need to get two-thirds of the vote.
Rob Lapsley, president of the Business Roundtable, described the move as “a political favor for special interest groups wanting to make it easier to raise taxes on all Californians.”
The amendment’s co-sponsor, the Service Employees International Union of California, which represents tens of thousands of state workers, contended the Roundtable amendment will result in major reductions to essential public services, and that ACA-13 would protect communities’ ability to pass initiatives they want.
“The cornerstone of our democracy is majority rule,” said David Huerta, president of SEIU California and of SEIU United Service Workers West. “ACA 13 is about basic fairness: if you want to require a supermajority with your initiative, then you’ll need a supermajority yourself.”
Though the amendment could have gone before voters on the March primary ballot, Democratic leadership opted to put it on the November 2024 ballot, when turnout is greater.
