Prop 43 - The Anti-Tax Ballot Measure and Transit Funding
Prop 43, a ballot measure that will be on voters' ballots in November will make it harder to fund transit and other public services in the future, but will not directly impact the 2026 Bay Area transit measures that together are essential to prevent cuts and fund rider improvements.
Assembly Member Buffy Wicks, who authorized ACA-22 which authorized the ballot measure as a compromise to reduce the harm of the earlier, even more harmful measure authored by the Howard Jarvis anti-tax group, says that she is adamantly opposed to ACA-22.
ACA-22, the law that authorized Prop 43, was approved by the legislature on June 25, hours ahead of the deadline to finalize ballot measures for November. If approved by voters, Prop 43 would amend California's Constitution so that after January 21, 2027, no local government can impose, extend, or increase any special taxes - even through the citizens’ initiative process - unless a tax is passed by the voters with a 2/3rds vote. A special tax refers to taxes that are dedicated to a specific purpose rather than general governmental use – local schools, libraries, infrastructure, etc.
Prop 43 replaced an earlier, even more destructive anti-tax proposal from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association that would have retroactively invalidated past ballot measures that were approved under the citizens initiative but received less than 2/3rds vote.
The retroactivity provision, which was removed, would have reduced local revenues by up to a couple billion dollars annually according to an estimate from the Legislative Analysts Office, driven primarily by real estate transfer taxes in 26 charter cities, including the Bay Area cities of Alameda, Albany, Berkeley, El Cerrito, Emeryville, Hayward, Mountain View, Oakland, Palo Alto, Petaluma, Piedmont, Richmond, San Francisco, San Jose, San Leandro, San Mateo, San Rafael, Santa Rosa, and Vallejo. These taxes fund local fire departments, parks, and other basic local services.
The Connect Bay Area Regional Transit Measure and the Stronger Muni for All measure in San Francisco could have been at risk too because the Jarvis measure was intended to be retroactive. But Prop 43 will only apply to future tax measures.
The deal that put ACA-22 on the ballot also replaced a competing ballot measure that would have required the Jarvis measure to pass with a two-thirds threshold. So Prop 43 measure will require only a 50% majority to pass.
Seamless Bay Area opposes Prop 43 since it would be harmful for future efforts to fund transit, affordable housing, and other valuable public investments. It would impact the Bay Area’s efforts to fund affordable housing using the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority (BAHFA) if it was put on the ballot by a citizen's initiative, and it could harm efforts by AC Transit to renew the parcel tax that funds bus service, which expires in 2039, and other local self-help measures.
As reported in the SF Chronicle, if Prop 43 authorized by ACA-22 was already in effect, measures such as Alameda County’s 2025 Measure B funding healthcare, Sonoma County’s 2024 Measure H for fire protection and Santa Clara’s June 2026 Measure D for open space preservation would not have passed, since they all received less than a two-thirds vote.
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