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 …
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.
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. “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.”
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.