Carl DeMaio: California Democrats passed two bills to gut Prop 13 and make it easier to raise taxes

SAN DIEGO (KUSI) – Thursday evening, California State Senate Democrats passed two bills to gut Proposition 13.

Proposition 13 is a landmark tax reform measure passed in 1978 that has made it harder for politicians to raise your taxes. The California Constitution requires a two-thirds vote at the local level for both general obligation bonds and special taxes.

Chairman of Reform California, Carl DeMaio, says the new bills, ACA-1 & ACA-13, are about to change that.

Reform California‘s website explains what the measures do:

1. ‍ACA-1: Lowers the threshold to approve special tax hikes from two-thirds to 55%
2. CTPI: Restores Prop 13’s voter approval requirements for tax hikes and requires honest ballot titles
3. ACA-13: Blocks the California Taxpayer Protection Initiative from being approved by increasing the votes required for approval from a majority to a super-majority

ACA-13, also called the “Protect and Retain the Majority Vote Act,” was authored by Democrat Assemblyman Chris Ward, who says “any measure that imposes a two-thirds supermajority vote threshold should also have to pass with a two-thirds vote.”

ACA-1 was authored by Democrat Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, who says the bill “will lower the necessary voter threshold from a two-thirds supermajority to 55% to approve local general obligation (GO) bonds and special taxes for affordable housing and public infrastructure projects.” Aguiar-Curry says ACA-1 targets “the urgent needs of local communities.” Continuing, “this measure gives local governments a more realistic financing option to fund an increase in the supply of affordable housing.”

DeMaio and other critics warn these bills are the gateway to making it easier for our elected leaders to raise taxes, saying Democrats “have shown they do not care about the cost-of-living crisis that is hurting California working families and they are hell-bent on making things worse by raising taxes even higher.”

DeMaio joined KUSI’s Paul Rudy on Good Morning San Diego Wednesday, where he predicted the state Democrats would have enough votes to pass these pieces of legislation, which they did on Thursday.

ACA-1 and ACA-13 will now be placed on either the March 2024 ballot, or the November 2024 ballot.

But DeMaio is promising to lead the fight against to stop these two bills from being passed by voters, and explained how a coalition led by him has been able to “undo the loopholes” that California Democrats have been able to extract from Prop 13 over the past two to three years.

DeMaio’s coalition was able to get 1.3 million signatures, and the bill will now be on the ballot. DeMaio says the bill will do the following;

• Restore a two-thirds vote on local taxes
• Mandate a statewide vote on things like the gas tax
• Tighten the definition of fees vs. taxes
• Requires honest ballot titles on tax increases – Anything that has a tax increase inside the measure, would have to have the words “tax increase” in the ballot title presented to voters.

ACA-1:

ACA-13: