🏡💚 Consider the taxpayers protected
This Week in Green Social Housing
June 21, 2024
If you recall, I ended last week’s newsletter by saying: “the campaign to fight back against the Taxpayer Deception Act (TDA) is in full swing. As we get down to the last days to finalize November’s ballot measures, let’s hope a bit of good news is on the horizon.”
Well, it seems we’ve reached that horizon, and found some very good news indeed:
The Taxpayer Deception Act (or “Taxpayer Protection Act,” as the Business Roundtable misleadingly tried to call it) is dead! 🎉 Undercutting the measure before it reached the ballot box, the California Supreme Court ruled that the proposal “would substantially alter our basic plan of government” and so instead must be “governed by the procedures for revising our Constitution” — meaning that something this core to our government has to first pass the Legislature by a supermajority before going to voters, or be enacted through a constitutional convention.
This is a huge victory for everyone that cares about public services, schools, public health, climate action, housing, and all of the many things that our taxes fund. In a press release after the decision, Sabrina Smith of California Calls said, “the California Supreme Court has ruled in favor of communities across the state that have spoken clearly: the Taxpayer Deception Act is unconstitutional, an extremist attack on voters’ rights, and a cynical attempt by a few wealthy real estate developers and landlords to avoid paying their fair share at the taxpayer’s expense.”
This ruling also avoids the enormous amount of time, money, and resources that would have needed to go to this defensive fight in November. A big upshot of this is that now that time, capacity, and resources can go to the many other issues that will be on the ballot.
I’m sure there will be others that have a more detailed post-mortem of the campaign against the Taxpayer Deception Act, but one takeaway that really impressed me was the work that was done to attack the measure in many different arenas. The No on the TDA campaign used almost every point of intervention to try to defeat it and put pressure on its supporters. In addition to this legal fight, the electoral work was in full force with organized press rallies, train the trainer workshops, coalition meetings, and an all-out media and messaging campaign. The campaign also explored a legislative strategy to apply additional pressure, and had already worked to get ACA 13 on the ballot, which would have made it harder to pass the Taxpayer Deception Act by requiring a higher voting threshold (I’m assuming ACA 13 will now be removed from the ballot, but maybe they’ll decide to keep it on to try to preemptively stop Big Business from trying a similar anti-tax measure in the future). There’s a lot to be learned from this, and for now I know many who can let out a big sigh of relief.
That relief probably won’t last too long, as there are still many more legislative and ballot fights that will take all of our attention over the coming months. And while the victory against the Taxpayer Deception Act should be celebrated and given its day, it comes amidst the news of a number of other defeats.
One of those defeats includes the death of ACA 10 — if passed, this bill would have brought to voters a constitutional amendment to enshrine housing as a human right . This was one of our priority bills this year, and while we always knew it had a very tough path, it is still disappointing to see it come to an end this year.
Confusingly, what’s taken it’s place (literally, through a gut-and-amend process where the text of an existing bill is completely deleted and new language is inserted), is an updated ACA 1. Supporters felt the need to update ACA 1 to address concerns raised previously about the legislation — and I’ve also heard that the Realtors used this as an opportunity to insert amendments that would create a wide-ranging prohibition on how jurisdictions can use their funds.
As we move into our own process as a coalition to deliberate and make decisions on our Ballot Slate, we can dive more into those policy details (which, admittedly, I don’t feel like I fully understand right now). But for now, if you see “ACA 10” still being discussed, know that that is a zombie version unrelated to the Right to Housing (but still related to an important housing ballot measure!).
I’d also be remiss not to mention a few legislative defeats from the past few weeks. I meant to cover the death of SB 1497 (the Polluter’s Pay Climate Fund) last week, a blow made all the more disappointing because similar bills passed in both New York and Vermont. SB 1497 has actually been placed on inactive file, so it can theoretically can still be put to a floor vote, though politically that seems highly unlikely.
We were also sad to see that SB 252 (the CalPERS & CalSTRS Divestment bill) was also pulled this week by the author, Senator Gonzalez, after the Assembly Committee on Public Employment and Retirement proposed “poison pill” amendments to the bill. In a press release, Gonzalez reiterated her commitment to bringing the bill back until it passes: “We need fossil fuel divestment NOW, not later. And today, I reaffirm my commitment to passing this legislation, because we are not giving up.”
So the fight goes on.
We are in the last days before ballot measures get finalized, and I know there is a lot of last minute scrambling still going on (including the work that many of you are leading on the climate bond). We’ll have a final idea of the ballot landscape next week, with the deadline of June 27 for the Legislature to put measures on the November ballot (or pull them off through agreements with the proponents). So by next week this time (conveniently at the time of the next newsletter), we should know the results of these ongoing negotiations, and the first full view of the work ahead before the election.
The California Supreme Court blocked the Taxpayer Deception Act. Huzzah! Source: LA Times
WHAT WE’RE READING
High court blocks anti-tax measure from California ballot (Cal Matters) — huzzah!
Shasta Indian Nation to get homeland back in largest land return in California history (LA Times)
Corporate Wealth vs Community Health — new fantastic report from coalition member Human Impact Partners! Highly recommend checking it out!
The Case for Golden State Energy: Benefits of a Nonprofit Utility Model to Serve California — an amazing report by another coalition member, the Reclaim Our Power Utility Justice Campaign!
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