Dick Spotswood: Keep institutional governing device limiting expensive proposals
Keep your eyes on Assembly Constitutional Amendment 1, which just passed both houses of the state Legislature.
The proposed amendment is headed to the statewide ballot in the November 2024 general election. If passed, it will eliminate one of the taxpayer protections enacted into law by 1978’s groundbreaking Proposition 13.
The intent of ACA 1 is to lower the voter threshold required to pass new special taxes and bonds to 55%. The current requirement is a 66.7% supermajority. There is an existing exception for school-related bonds, enabling passage with 55% of those voting.
The current supermajority law is a tough (but not impossible) hurdle for projects that achieve widespread public approval. The North Bay example is 2008’s Measure Q, which initiated a one-quarter cent sales tax to build the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit service. It earned 69% of the combined Marin and Sonoma vote.
It’s no coincidence that many Democrats serving in Sacramento, at regional agencies, on county boards of supervisors and in city councils are eager to see ACA 1’s passage. Two major new taxes for programs they support may soon be on the ballot.
One is a regional measure creating a tax to bail out transit agencies experiencing declines of ridership and fare-based revenue since the pandemic’s onset. The biggest beneficiary of the funds generated will be the Bay Area Rapid Transit District. BART, unlike other fiscally responsible agencies including Golden Gate Transit, refuses under pressure from its unions to trim its routes and frequencies to coincide with its ridership decline.
The second proposal imposes a new tax on residents in the nine Bay Area counties for bonds raising between $10 and $20 billion to fund new housing construction in the region. The tax will be administered and allocated by the appointed Metropolitan Transportation Commission under the guise of MTC commissioners doing double duty as the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority.
It’s natural and appropriate for elected officials to dream big. The Golden Gate Bridge is the result of government-led vision. Many efforts have been highly beneficial even when new taxes were required to finance their construction and operation. The dilemma is that the number of projects on their wish lists is infinite.
There needs to be an institutional governing device to limit those expensive proposals only to what is essential and popular. If that device is weakened, California residents will be overwhelmed. The tried-and-true regulator is mandating a substantial supermajority vote for passage. Proposition 13’s requirement of two-thirds voter approval for new taxes and most bonds accomplishes that goal. It should be maintained.
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The Anti-Defamation League has appointed former California Assemblymember Marc Levine as director of its Central Pacific Office. Based in San Francisco, the office serves Northern California, Hawaii and Utah.
The prestigious appointment’s offer was likely behind Levine’s withdrawal as a candidate for the open District 2 seat on the Marin Board of Supervisors. It’s also a fine example to other former elected officials: Community service exists outside of government.
As the nonprofit self-describes, “The Anti-Defamation League … is an international Jewish non-governmental organization based in the United States that specializes in civil rights law and combats antisemitism and extremism.”
In his new work, Levine will undoubtedly come up against Elon Musk, who has weaponized “X,” the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, to attack the ADL. Musk oddly said, “The ADL, because they are so aggressive in their demands to ban social media accounts for even minor infractions, are ironically the biggest generators of anti-Semitism on this platform!” That’s as illogical and wrong as calling the Israel Defense Forces antisemitic.
Musk in part blames ADL as an excuse behind the hits X’s reputation and finances have taken since his takeover.