Final week, a state appellate court docket declared {that a} 2020 poll measure to extend lodge taxes in San Diego is legitimate regardless that it didn’t obtain the two-thirds approval that voters had been advised it might require. The choice was the newest skirmish in a years-long political and authorized wrangle over voting necessities for native tax improve proposals.
To start originally, in 1996, California voters permitted Proposition 218 which, amongst different issues, required two-thirds voter approval for native taxes designated for particular functions. Proponents described it as an extension of Proposition 13, California’s iconic tax restrict measure permitted in 1978.
In 2017, the state Supreme Courtroom hinted that whereas the two-thirds vote requirement utilized to taxes proposed by native governments, it won’t apply to these proposed by a residents initiative, when sufficient signatures are collected.
Writing a 5-2 determination in a case known as “Upland” as a result of it handled a tax on marijuana gross sales in that metropolis, Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar declared, “Multiple provisions of the state constitution explicitly constrain the power of local governments to raise taxes. But we will not lightly apply such restrictions on local governments to voter initiatives.”
Tax proponents took the trace and commenced putting tax measures on the poll through initiative, however usually wound up in court docket. Whereas some native judges utilized the supermajority customary, others declared that straightforward majority votes suffice.
In 2020, the Supreme Courtroom — in a roundabout approach — ended the confusion by refusing to contemplate an appellate ruling that validated particular taxes proposed by initiative and permitted by easy majorities.
Final yr, the California Enterprise Roundtable and different teams that disliked the Supreme Courtroom’s partial dismantling of Prop. 218 fired again with a constitutional poll measure that may reimpose supermajority votes for particular taxes proposed through initiative and place very tight restrictions on the legislature’s energy to boost taxes.
As soon as once more, nevertheless, the Supreme Courtroom interceded. It blocked the initiative, unanimously declaring that the Taxpayers Safety Act, because it was dubbed, could be a revision of the state structure due to its restrictions on the legislature and due to this fact was itself unconstitutional.
“No speculation regarding potential future consequences is needed to conclude that the TPA is a revision on its face,” the court docket declared. “The measure would fundamentally restructure the most basic of governmental powers. The TPA would exclude the levying of new taxes from the Legislature’s control by requiring voter approval of all such measures.”
It’s towards this background that the battle over lodge taxes in San Diego has been waged. Native leaders sought the rise largely to finance enlargement of an already cavernous waterfront conference middle in hopes of attracting extra and bigger conventions and commerce exhibits.
When the difficulty was positioned earlier than native voters in 2020, they have been advised that it required a two-thirds vote. It obtained 65.2% of the vote and election officers declared it a loser, however the San Diego Metropolis Council nonetheless voted to say it handed.
Tax improve opponents sued, alleging that whereas the measure was positioned on the poll by initiative petition, it was a sham that hid the position that officialdom performed within the course of. It resulted in final week’s appellate court docket ruling that the tax improve is legitimate.
Tax opponents might take the difficulty to the state Supreme Courtroom, however their possibilities of profitable appear slim. In the meantime, nevertheless, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Affiliation is selling a possible measure for the 2026 poll that may reinstate the two-thirds vote for native particular taxes, no matter how they made the poll.
“The Upland loophole has allowed special interest groups to write initiatives that raise taxes, direct the money to themselves, and pass them with just a simple majority,” the group’s president Jon Coupal stated.
Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.
