As I write this, the full fury of the November midterms has not arrived, but I expect we’ll see an enormous amount of energy and money spent on Proposition 43. To cut to the chase: We must vote down this right-wing anti-tax scheme to reduce government services and limit the will of the electorate!
The voter guide summarizes this Proposition 43 as follows:
“Require two-thirds vote by electorate to enact, extend, or increase local special tax initiatives and prohibit local governments and ballot initiatives from enacting ad valorem property taxes except those authorized elsewhere in the state constitution.”
In 2022, the progressive and labor movements campaigned for United to House LA, a citizen ballot initiative that passed with 58% of the vote. It has imposed a one-time 4% tax on the transfer of property valued at $5.3 million and a 5.5% tax on property valued at $10.6 million. At the time, there was a cry from the Howard Jarvis “never-tax-anything and we don’t care if that means no government services” (my words) crowd that this would end civilization as we know it. The purpose of the proposition was to help fund the building of affordable housing and to otherwise fight homelessness. Lo and behold, after winning in court as to its legality, the initiative has worked: There is now over $1 billion in the ULA fund and it’s helping tenants avoid eviction and thereby homelessness as well as building low-cost housing.
When I attended a teach-in on the battles to weaken or abolish ULA, I came to understand that this is part of the larger fight by the corporate landlord lobby to limit the democratic process by citizens to control how taxes are raised and how they are spent. It goes back to the passage of Prop. 13 in 1978, which generally limited to an annual 2% increase in property taxes. Importantly, it required a 2/3rd vote by the state legislature or local government to increase property taxes. Prop. 13 itself, however, was a citizen ballot initiative and did not require a 2/3rd supermajority to pass into law.
And now that the landlord lobby and the right-wing generally is so furious that the voters in LA passed ULA, the “Mansion Tax”, they are pushing Prop. 43 in order to avoid other local governments or local citizens from passing similar “Mansion Tax” laws in other jurisdictions. The right wing wants to accomplish this by requiring a 2/3rd supermajority vote, even on citizen initiated ballot measures in order to become law. If Prop. 43 had been in place in 2022, we would not have a Mansion Tax in LA.
And we would have made even less progress to combat homelessness. Vote NO on Prop. 43!