By Jon Coupal – December 23, 2024

Oh, by gosh and by golly; it’s time for mistletoe and holly. It’s also time for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association naughty and nice list. We made a list. We checked it twice. Time to find out who’s naughty and nice to California taxpayers this year. 

First, let’s start with the nice list. Well, it’s you! The voters of California. You defeated Proposition 5 by 10 points! That’s a huge win for taxpayers because Prop. 5 would have made it easier to raise property taxes by making it easier for local governments to take on new debt, by issuing bonds. Local bonds are repaid by placing extra charges on property tax bills. Prop. 5 would have lowered the vote threshold to approve nearly all local bonds from the current two-thirds requirement down to 55 percent.  

Prop. 5 was put on the ballot by the legislature, where it was titled ACA 1. The original version would have lowered the threshold for bonds and special taxes, a direct attack on Proposition 13. But when their own polling showed that ACA 1 would fail in a statewide vote (it did anyway), they desperately passed a new measure, ACA 10, attempting to make the attack more palatable to voters by making it apply only to bonds.  

That puts the legislators who voted against this monstrosity no on the nice list. They were Brian Dahle, Shannon Grove, Brian Jones, Janet Nguyen, Roger Niello, Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, Kelly Seyarto, Scott Wilk, Megan Dahle, Diane Dixon, Bill Essayli, James Gallagher, Tom Lackey, Joe Patterson, Kate Sanchez and Tri Ta. 

Also, many in the capital media community also made it on the nice list. For years, it felt like the powers-that-be could do no wrong in the eyes of a compliant Sacramento media, but Ashley Zavala, Eytan Wallace, Alexei Koseff, Ryan Sabalow, Sameea Kamal, Katie Grimes, Emily Hoeven and Dan Walters among others are doing a fantastic job asking tough questions and making the comfortable uncomfortable. We may not always agree, but they aren’t pulling punches. 

That brings us to the naughty list.  

If legislators who voted no on ACA 10 get sugar plums in their stockings, then the legislators who voted to make it easier to raise your taxes get a big lump of coal.  

They are Ben Allen, Bob Archuleta, Angelique Ashby, Toni Atkins, Josh Becker, Catherine Blakespear, Steven Bradford, Anna Caballero, Dave Cortese, Bill Dodd, Maria Elena Durazo, Susan Eggman, Steve Glazer, Lena Gonzalez, Melissa Hurtado, John Laird, Monique Limon, Mike McGuire, Caroline Menjivar, Dave Min, Josh Newman, Steve Padilla, Anthony Portantino, Richard Roth, Susan Rubio, Nancy Skinner, Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, Henry Stern, Tom Umberg, Aisha Wahab, Scott Wiener,  Dawn Addis, Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, David Alvarez, Joaquin Arambula, Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, Steve Bennett, Marc Berman, Tasha Boerner, Mia Bonta, Isaac Bryan, Lisa Calderon, Juan Carrillo, Wendy Carrillo, Sabrina Cervantes, Damon Connolly, Mike Fong, Laura Friedman, Jesse Gabriel, Eduardo Garcia, Tim Grayson, Matt Haney, Gregg Hart, Chris Holden, Jacqui Irwin, Corey Jackson, Ash Kalra, Alex Lee, Evan Low, Josh Lowenthal, Kevin McCarty, Tina McKinnor, Al Muratsuchi, Stephanie Nguyen, Liz Ortega, Blanca Pacheco, Diane Papan, Gail Pellerin, Cottie Petrie-Norris, Sharon Quirk-Silva, Anthony Rendon, Eloise Reyes, Luz Rivas, Freddie Rodriguez, Blanca Rubio, Miguel Santiago, Phil Ting, Carlos Villapudua, Chris Ward, Akilah Weber, Buffy Wicks, Lori Wilson, Jim Wood, Rick Zbur and Robert Rivas. 

And finally, a big bah humbug to Gov. Gavin Newsom, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, Senate pro tempore Mike McGuire and the California Supreme Court for removing the Taxpayer Protection Act from the ballot. It would have closed loopholes that courts have carved in Prop. 13, required truthful ballot labels, curbed the power of bureaucracies including CARB to impose fees that are really taxes, and given voters the right to vote on state tax increases. 

TPA had broad support among hundreds of business associations, chambers of commerce and virtually every taxpayer association in California all concerned with the preservation of Propositions 13 and 218. 

But the Supreme Court, in doing the bidding of Gov. Newsom and the state’s supermajority legislative leaders, ignored the rights of more than 1.4 million California voters who signed petitions to put the initiative on the ballot. 

For that, they all deserve not just a lump of coal, but an entire sack of it. (Or a sack of something else we cannot mention).  

Jon Coupal is president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.