A confusing 2017 California Supreme Court ruling about the threshold of approval for local ballot measures that are qualified for the ballot through citizen-led signature-gathering efforts – as opposed to being placed before voters by local officeholders – is causing major uncertainty in the Bay Area.

In the case of California Cannabis Coalition v. the City of Upland, the state high court appeared to suggest that citizen-qualified tax or fee measures needed only a simple majority for approval, while others required two-thirds support. But the court did not offer a definitive statement. Many legal experts questioned how justices came up with a new interpretation of 1978’s Proposition 13 and 1996’s Proposition 218, which generally imposed a two-thirds requirement for voter approval of local taxes.

This has created uncertainty around three measures in San Francisco and one in Oakland that were approved by strong majorities of voters – but not by two-thirds.

One city attorney says majority OK; other says two-thirds needed

Last week, the Harvard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the California Business Roundtable and the California Business Properties Association launched a legal challenge to San Francisco’s Proposition C. It is a complicated measure that imposes a new tax on businesses with more than $50 million in gross receipts. Some industries are charged 0.175 percent, while others pay 0.69 percent – nearly four times as much. This is on top of San Francisco’s existing gross receipts tax on companies with $1 million or more in gross receipts.

Relying on City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s interpretation of the 2017 California high court ruling, the city has treated the new tax as valid despite its November passage with less than a two-thirds majority. Proposition C is expected to generate at least $300 million a year for homeless programs.

Herrera holds the same position on two measures approved by San Francisco voters last June. One imposed an annual parcel tax of $298 to help increase teacher salaries. The other raised taxes on some commercial rents to fund child care and education programs.

In interviews, Herrera has offered explanations for his position that seem more populist than rooted in any broader legal theory about how California direct democracy should function. He’s said voters should be able to impose tax hikes with simple majorities.

In Oakland, a divided City Council last week decided not to levy an annual $198-per-house, $135-per-apartment annual parcel tax in 2019. The parcel tax was passed by voters as Measure AA in November. It was expected to generate as much as $900 million for education programs over 30 years. While two council members wanted to begin collecting and spending the funds immediately, a council majority ended up heeding City Attorney Barbara Parker, who wrote in the official voters guide that two-thirds support was necessary for passage.

S.F. unruffled by loss of city’s highest-grossing firm

By far the most controversial of the four measures in legal limbo is Proposition C. It was opposed by Mayor London Breed and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey not just because it could be seen as creating a hostile business climate but because the measure would fund homeless programs without setting up metrics to determine what worked and what didn’t.

One huge multinational corporation made plain its unhappiness with the new levy. On Nov. 30, 11 days after a CalWatchdog report anticipating the decision, pharmaceutical giant McKesson Corp. announced it was relocating its headquarters from San Francisco to a Dallas suburb. The loss of McKesson – by far the highest-grossing San Francisco company, the second-largest in California after Apple and the sixth-largest in the U.S. – appeared to vindicate Breed’s and Dorsey’s warnings.

But despite McKesson’s exit and huge problems with housing and homelessness, San Francisco officials are much more upbeat than those in elsewhere in Silicon Valley about the sustainability of the tech boom. From 2010 to 2017, while tech job growth began to slow in the region, the number of tech jobs in San Francisco went from about 21,000 to 84,000.

A San Francisco Chronicle analysis noted that no large tech firm had left the city in recent years. Such companies, development analyst Colin Yasukochi told the Chronicle, are “in the innovation business. Being able to attract the best and brightest minds is going to give them a competitive advantage when it comes to innovating new products and services.”

Governor-elect Gavin Newsom says he hopes to amend the California tax code to lessen its dependence on income and capital gains taxes paid by the very rich. Yet the last two serious attempts at tax reform were both dead on arrival, and the political dynamics since their failure appear unchanged or even more unfavorable.

With the state overdue by historical standards for another recession, Newsom is well aware of the revenue nightmare that is looming. After the Great Recession hit a decade ago, state revenue plunged nearly 20 percent – leading to harsh budget cuts in education, public health and social services. Since income and capital gains taxes generate about two-thirds of state revenue, volatility is common.

The revenue decline a decade ago led then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to create a commission that in 2009 recommended slashing taxes on income and capital gains while imposing taxes on broad categories of services including legal work, haircuts and tickets to sports and entertainment events. The goal was a tax code rewrite that was initially revenue-neutral but that could end up creating considerable new revenue because of provisions designed to promote economic growth.

Democrats see income-tax cut as gift to rich

Yet while commission heavyweights like former Treasury Secretary George Shultz and many economists touted the wisdom of the proposal, the commission’s tax-overhaul blueprint was blasted by both parties from the moment it was released.

Democrats said the plan was a giveaway to the rich. Republicans knocked it for expanding government taxation to new areas.

The scheme – dubbed the Parsky plan because Rancho Santa Fe GOP businessman Gerald Parsky chaired the commission – never even came up for a committee hearing.

Six years later, in 2015, state Sen. Robert Hertzberg pushed a similar proposal, but with a twist. Instead of being revenue-neutral, has plan would yield $10 billion in new revenue a year. Yet Hertzberg’s plan was also DOA in the Capitol for the same reasons as Parsky’s.

Now, with the progressive wing in more complete control than ever of Democrats, their antipathy toward the idea of tax relief for the rich may never have been stronger. That was reflected in the recent Sacramento Bee story about Newsom’s interest in revamping the state tax code.

Jessica Bartholow, policy advocate at the Western Center on Law & Poverty, told the Bee that the tax code shouldn’t be changed to help the rich and big business.

“Capital gains is money earned by people who didn’t earn it,” Bartholow said. “If wealthy corporations and people are having an upswing in their interests, then why shouldn’t the poorest people?”

Republicans fear reform would prove bait-and-switch

The strongest voice in support of tax reform the Bee cited was Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable. But the basic sentiment conservatives expressed about the Parsky and Hertzberg plans – Sacramento wants to tax even more human activities? – is at least as intense as in 2009 and 2015. There is considerable suspicion that any reform plan would end up as a Trojan horse for much higher taxes.

This is fueled by evidence that Democrats are gearing up for a huge push to hike taxes even though state revenue is at an all-time high. The most high-profile gambit is qualifying a measure for the 2020 ballot that would end Proposition 13 protections against property tax hikes of more than 2 percent a year for commercial and industrial properties.

This tax-hike fervor is already evident in local governments, including some under Republican control. As CalWatchdog reported last month, more than 150 local governments asked voters to raise taxes in the June and November elections. While most of the tax hikes were adopted after campaigns depicting them as crucial to public safety and to maintaining government services, by far the fastest-growing category of local spending is on pension costs, which are predicted to roughly double for California cities from 2015 to 2025.

The influential California Association of Realtors is launching a signature drive for a November 2018 ballot measure that would greatly expand the ability of Californians who are at least 55 years old and disabled people to maintain their low-tax assessments even if they move to other counties or purchase more expensive new homes.

Prop. 13 requires counties to tax properties at 1 percent of their value (plus bonds and other special assessments), which is established at the time of sale. The owners maintain that assessment even if values increase, as they typically do in California. The proposition limits tax hikes to no more than 2 percent a year. Prop. 13 passed overwhelmingly because many people – especially seniors – were being taxed out of their homes as assessments soared during a real-estate boom.

Under current rules, people 55 and older may keep their low assessments if they move within the same county or within one of 11 counties that accept these transfers. They may do so only once in a lifetime. It enables retired people, for instance, to downsize from a big family house to a condominium without paying a stiff tax penalty.

For example, if one purchased a home in 2008 for $350,000 and that home is now worth $750,000, they may continue paying taxes at the lower assessed value even after they sell the home and purchase a smaller one. The valuation goes with them. But the newly purchased property must have a market value the same or lower than the house that has been sold.

The Realtors’ proposal would, for seniors and the disabled, tie the assessed value of any newly purchased home to the assessed value of the old home. They would be free to take that assessment with them to any of the state’s 58 counties. They could carry it with them as many times as they choose. The reduced assessments would apply even for people who purchase home with market values above the ones that they sold.

As the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office explains, if the new and prior homes have the same market values (based on sales and purchase prices), the new tax valuation would be the same as the old one. A fairly complex formula would determine the tax rate for purchases that were either higher or lower than the sales price of the prior home.

The initiative addresses a problem faced by many empty-nesters. They are living in large homes where they raised their families and would like to downsize – but to do so would mean a huge tax hit given that their new tax rate would be tied to the purchase price of the new property. In the preponderance of situations, the new purchase price for even a smaller house would be far higher than the price that the seniors paid for the homes where they currently live.

The Orange County Register reports that, if passed, the initiative could spur an additional 40,000 home sales a year. Supporters say that could ease up tight housing markets, but foes argue that the Realtors have an interest in spurring more home sales. County governments – backed by LAO projections – say that it eventually will cost them as much as much as $1 billion a year.

“By further reducing the increase in property taxes that typically accompanies home purchases by older homeowners, the measure would reduce property tax revenues for local governments,” according to that LAO analysis. “Additional property taxes created by an increase in home sales would partially offset those losses, but on net property taxes would decrease.”

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, which defends the legacy of Prop. 13, disputes the idea of large tax losses, given that younger couples would move in to the homes that older people sell, and they would pay property taxes based on the new market value. In other words, an older couple will sell a house and keep their lower tax rate.

“We believe upward portability makes a lot of sense especially as property values across California continue to rebound,” said HJTA president Jon Coupal in a statement. The statement says he believes the measure would “help California alleviate its current housing crisis by removing a financial barrier that keeps many older homeowners from selling their homes, and many millennials from entering the housing market.”

The Realtors’ association had submitted three different potential measures, including one that would expand portability for people of all ages. But the final measure applies only to seniors and disabled persons. As the saying goes, the best defense is a good offense. Supporters of Prop. 13 have learned that the best way to protect it might be by trying to expand it.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

Continuing a longstanding bipartisan tradition, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra came

Assemblyman Travis Allen, R-Huntington Beach, is sponsoring a measure to repeal the fuel tax and vehicle fee hikes approved this spring. The description given to Allen’s proposal by Becerra’s office didn’t mention taxes or fees. Instead, it said the measure “eliminates recently enacted road repair and transportation funding by repealing revenues dedicated for those purposes.”

Allen’s lawyers said the description was fundamentally deceptive. Last week, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Timothy M. Frawley agreed: “The Attorney General’s title and summary … must be changed to avoid misleading the voters and creating prejudice against the measure,” he wrote.

The revision Frawley ordered: “Repeals recently enacted gas and diesel taxes and vehicle registration fees. Eliminates road repair and transportation programs funded by these taxes and fees.”

The perception of attorneys general using ballot language to manipulate voters has been common for decades.

When Becerra’s predecessor, fellow Democrat Kamala Harris, was attorney general before her election in November to the U.S. Senate, Republicans alleged she was particularly ready to put her thumb on the scale. The ballot description for 2016’s successful Proposition 58 made it seem as if it reinforced English-learning standards in state public schools when its primary intent was to repeal mandatory English-only immersion programs required by 1998’s Proposition 227. In 2015, Harris was trashed by the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial board for effectively killing pension reform measures with what the board called ballot descriptions that sounded like “union talking points.”

When Gov. Jerry Brown was attorney general before Harris, his office also courted controversy. Two of his ballot descriptions were castigated by state judges in the same week in August 2010.

One was for Proposition 23, an unsuccessful measure which would have suspended implementation of state climate-change pollution rules. The initial ballot language was condemned as prejudicial and misleading by Frawley, the same judge who recently ruled against Becerra.

Two days after Frawley’s ruling, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette rejected ballot language for Proposition 25. The successful ballot measure’s key change was to allow the state Legislature to approve a state budget on a simple majority vote. The ballot language Brown approved made it appear as if the measure’s main intent was to reinforce the requirement that the Legislature could only approve tax increases on a two-thirds vote of both the Assembly and the Senate.

Republican attorneys general also accused of voter manipulation

But in the 20th century, when it wasn’t unusual to have Republicans holding statewide office in California, GOP attorneys general drew fire as well for their perceived ballot language machinations.

The most famous example was in 1978, when California voters approved Proposition 13 to put sharp limits on how much property taxes could increase annually. Neither the ballot title or summary approved by GOP Attorney General Evelle Younger mentioned that it also would raise the threshold for raising taxes in the Legislature to a two-thirds vote.

In 1996, Republican Attorney General Dan Lungren also drew fire over the ballot language he approved for Proposition 209, a successful measure limiting the use of racial preferences by state government. In 2012, Chronicle editorial page editor John Diaz revisited criticism first made in 1996, arguing that Lungren used “loaded words” to sell opposition to affirmative action.

Could felons soon vote from jail?

Good morning. So close to Friday!

All eyes are on Jerry Brown as he continues to decide the fate of many, many bills. In fact, heightening the stakes in the criminal justice debate roiling the country at large, Brown could soon greenlight a law that would allow some state felons to vote from jail.

California has wound up in the middle of the pack on state laws around criminals and voting rights.

CalWatchdog has more.

In other news:

• “Two women have been arrested on charges of holding four brothers captive at an illegal marijuana farm in Northern California and forcing them to work there for six months, police said Wednesday.” The San Jose Mercury News/AP have more.

• “Tehama County sheriff’s detectives investigated 10 murders in 2014 and 2015 — twice as many as the three previous years combined. ‘Our last four homicides were all in what you would call Prop. 215 (marijuana grows),’ said Sheriff Dave Hencratt, referring to large grows under the state’s medical marijuana law.” The Redding Record Searchlight has more.

• “Air quality regulators are considering seeking an increase in vehicle registration fees for millions of Southern California drivers to help pay for smog reduction programs,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

• Almost 40 years after California voters passed Proposition 13 to rein in property tax increases, available data shows that wealthy Californians have benefited the most, according to a new report from the state Legislative Analyst’s Office. 

Legislature:

• Gone ’til December. 

Gov. Brown:

• No public events announced.

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mfleming

New follower: @CasmirNmekam

Californians approve of Brown, Obama and state — country, not so much

Good morning! 

A majority of Californians approve of the job Gov. Jerry Brown is doing and think the state is on the right track, according to several Field Polls released this week. 

But the same correlation doesn’t extend to the perception of President Barack Obama, who received high marks, and the direction of the country, which a 54-percent majority sees headed down the wrong path. 

Brown and Obama polled nearly the same — 56 and 57 percent approval, respectively — with Democrats largely in support of both executives and Republicans largely disapproving.

Brown hasn’t dipped below 50 percent in the Field Poll since October 2012, when the state was still dealing with a budget crisis. For his part, Obama has consistently polled higher than Brown over the years. 

CalWatchdog has more. 

In other news: 

• “A San Diego-area businessman who filed papers seeking referenda to overturn six gun control laws said Saturday that he is part of a group of up to 100 activists who feel the measures were rushed through without considering public opinion,” writes the Los Angeles Times.
• After months of inquiries about questionable spending from his campaign account, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, is lawyering up. The San Diego Union-Tribune has more.  
• “A newly released document summarizing possible connections between Saudi officials and 9/11 hijackers places Los Angeles in a central role,” reports LA Weekly. 
• “In a formal audit just months before the deadly San Bruno blast, PG&E failed to tell state regulators about manufacturing defects affecting more than 80 miles of gas pipelines, according to evidence presented Friday in the utility’s federal criminal trial,” reports The San Jose Mercury News.
• Will voters get to weigh in on revising Prop. 13 in 2018? CalWatchdog has more.  

Legislature:

• Gone ’til August.

Gov. Brown:

• On vacation. 

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New followers: @RepDonBeyer @RadioFreeCalif

A ballot measure is likely in 2018 that aims to eliminate some or most of Prop. 13’s protections for commercial property — a concept known as “split roll” that has been discussed for decades. In May 2015, a coalition of unions set up a group called Make It Fair that originally talked about launching a 2016 ballot measure before pulling back over concerns it could harm chances to pass a November 2016 ballot measure extending the “temporary” income taxes on the wealthy that voters approved in 2012.

Split roll advocates say property taxes should be a much more important part of paying for government in a sprawling state with many needs. They cite evidence that economically successful mega-states Texas and Florida have much higher basic property tax rates.

Critics cite a 2012 Legislative Analyst’s Office report that challenged the assumption that Prop. 13 had starved the state of revenue. “Since 1979, revenue from the 1 percent rate has exceeded growth in the state’s economy,” the LAO noted. Other studies have found that property tax revenue has gone up by higher percentages that income and sales tax over the same span.

Record annual revenue of $60 billion looms

Now there’s fresh evidence that despite limits on property tax increases, revenue growth in the tax category can be robust. Reports this month show that homes and businesses changing hands and having assessments go up along with new construction could mean annual property tax revenue will be $3 billion higher than expected by Gov. Jerry Brown’s Department of Finance; the state could receive a record $60 billion.

The Bay Area is leading this surge.

San Francisco City/County is 8.8 percent ahead of predictions; Santa Clara County is 7.9 percent ahead, San Mateo County is 7.6 percent ahead; Napa County is 7.1 percent ahead; and Alameda County is 7 percent ahead.

Gains are more modest in Southern California, paced by Los Angeles County and San Diego County each running 5.6 percent ahead of expectations and Orange County up 5.4 percent.

Nevertheless, these gains are unlikely to head off a 2018 split roll ballot battle. That’s partly because perhaps the most powerful critic of the idea — Gov. Brown — will be in the final months of his fourth and final term.

Last October, Brown raised eyebrows — and prompted rebukes — when he likened efforts to tinker with Prop. 13 to a “tar baby.” The racially tinged term comes from 19th century folklore. Brown’s spokesman said his intent was plain: to suggest it was a bad idea and nothing more. At the same event, the governor also specifically opposed split roll.

‘Split roll’ likely focus of 2018 governor’s race

The topic is likely to be a factor in the governor’s race in 2018. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom has been an intermittent critic of Prop. 13 over the years. Last year, Treasurer John Chiang has said he would consider reforms but was cool to split roll. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has long backed split roll.

Another signature-gathering campaign targeting Prop. 13 is possible in 2018 that takes a different approach. Southern California nonprofit groups that advocate for anti-poverty programs have proposed subjecting real estate properties assessed at more than $3 million to a 1 percent property tax surcharge.

It was formally floated in 2015 before being dropped early this year because of concerns about other tax measures on the crowded November 2016 ballot. The proposal was initially forecast to raise nearly $8 billion a year.

It’s not even 2016 yet, but the first debate over a probable initiative on the November 2016 ballot took place in Dana Point Monday when former Board of Equalization member Conway Collis squared off with Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association president Jon Coupal over the Lifting Children and Families Out of Poverty Act. The debate was hosted by the California Alliance of Taxpayer Advocates.

The measure, backed by charity organizations dedicated to reducing poverty, would raise property taxes on residential and commercial property valued at $3 million and more. The money would be deposited in anti-poverty programs outside the General Fund.

Collis argued that the initiative was a way for government to help relieve 2.4 million California children living below the poverty line. He said there was a moral and financial reason to do so. Leaving one-quarter of California’s children in poverty was an immoral position for the state. Lifting 50 percent of those suffering from poverty in 20 years — the goal of the initiative proponents — would reduce the dollars required for welfare programs and prisons while adding taxpayers to the rolls.

Coupal saw the measure as a direct attack on Proposition 13’s property tax protections. He asked: “Aren’t taxes high enough?” listing the state’s high tax rates in different tax categories. Coupal said voters were willing to support the Proposition 30 tax increases when the state budget was in crisis. There is no crisis now, he asserted, with the state sitting on a surplus of anywhere from $1 billion to $10 billion.

To Collis, a tax that touched only 1 percent of the taxpayers was worth the investment in attempting to save money in welfare programs while aiding those in poverty. He said business had a legitimate concern in annual reassessments on property (as proposed in a legislative bill to split the property tax roll) but that this plan “protects and builds” on the Proposition 13 framework and would preserve property tax predictability.

But Coupal said the economy and businesses would suffer, with more businesses packing to leave the state, especially because the great portion of the properties affected by the proposed tax increase would be commercial properties.

While Collis said the initiative has fail-safes to control programming that did not work to reduce poverty, Coupal countered that 30 programs are already in place to deal with poverty and that many suffer from fraud and abuse with recipients spending taxpayer-sponsored income in Hawaiian resorts and Las Vegas casinos.

Collis said his initiative would not simply help the poor but would boost all Californians. He said that the growing number of poor would “swallow the state budget” unless corrective measures are taken.

Collis insisted that polling and focus groups prove that voters understand that the tax was only on expensive property and would affect few taxpayers. He said signature gatherers were asking voters if they owned property over $3 million and if they answered “no” then they were told the measure would interest them. Collis said voters readily signed.

However, Coupal had a message for those voters should the initiative qualify for the ballot. The initiative breaks Proposition 13 by going after residential property. Once that door is opened other tax increase activists will want to charge through and all residential property owners would be at risk. That message will not be lost on voters, Coupal said. It is a concern that would be expressed in a political campaign.

The campaign messages are already being shaped and a long political campaign season has unofficially begun.

(Disclosure: I am associated with the committee that opposes the Lifting Children and Families Out of Poverty Act.)

But two developments raise questions about whether assumptions about a stable, content senior cohort are still true in California.

The latest came in a Field Poll released last week. Here’s part of KQED’s account:

Nearly half of low-income elderly Californians have opted out of a statewide managed care experiment because they feared losing their doctors and were reluctant to make any changes to their health care, according to survey data released Tuesday by the Field Poll.

 

California is in the middle of a three-year pilot project aimed at nearly 500,000 of the state’s most costly patients — so-called dual eligibles. The beneficiaries receive both Medicare, the health insurance program for seniors and the disabled, and Medicaid, called Medi-Cal in California, which provides coverage for the poor.

 

The state program, known as Cal MediConnect, has had a high rate of people opting out — about 47 percent, according to the state Department of Health Care Services. …

The account noted that many seniors have been automatically enrolled in the new program without being aware of the change. That produced sharp criticism from William Averill, a cardiologist in Torrance.

“The most vulnerable people were the ones who weren’t in a position to understand their choices,” he said. “I think the whole thing is going to collapse under its own weight.”

Many state seniors struggle to make ends meet

Given the details of a report released in September by UCLA, California seniors’ anxiety about changes in their medical care is understandable. As CalWatchdog reported, the study concluded that 1.11 million of the 4 million adults in California who are 65 or older struggle to make ends meet. That’s equal to a poverty rate of 28 percent, more than triple previous federal estimates for the Golden State.

KPCC, the Pasadena-based NPR affiliate, took a closer look at the numbers in this report:

More than 770,000 seniors in California aren’t making enough to get by but aren’t considered poor by the federal government, according to a UCLA health policy study that is challenging the definition of poverty.

 

According to the study, about 340,000 Californians 65 years or older are considered poor based on the Federal Poverty Level, which makes them eligible for public assistance programs.

 

But in an analysis of 2009-2011 U.S. Census data, the researchers concluded that about 772,000 more seniors in the state could use the help but aren’t considered poor enough. She calls this group the “hidden poor.”

 

“They don’t have enough income to meet a minimally decent standard of living,” said study lead author Imelda Padilla-Frausto, a graduate student researcher at the Center for Health Policy Research.

The single state policy that most protects the finances of the elderly is arguably Proposition 13, the 1978 law preventing property taxes from going up more than 2 percent a year. This has insulated people who have owned their homes for decades from the effects of the massive increase in housing prices. Many homes in built-out communities with older stock sell for more than 10 times their original, mid-20th century purchase price.

Other states that have seen housing costs surge have adopted property tax relief for seniors on fixed incomes in recent years; this New Jersey program is typical.

But the way the questions were asked must be considered when weighing the results.

The idea of extending Proposition 30 is becoming more practical than theoretical with the submission of two separate ballot measures to achieve that goal. One measure, filed chiefly by the California Teachers Association, would extend Prop. 30 for 12 years. The second measure filed by the California Hospitals Association, a health care union and a children’s advocacy group, would make the Prop. 30 taxes permanent.

Voters Divided

The voters appear divided on extending Prop. 30 with 49 percent in favor of extension and 46 percent opposed. However, those favoring the extension drop to 32 percent if the taxes are made permanent.

One odd result from the poll was the great support for the Prop. 30 extension in the San Francisco Bay Area (63 percent) and much less support in the Central Valley (50 percent); odd, because this tax is centered on the wealthy, those with incomes of $250,000 and more. There are many more high-end taxpayers in the Bay Area than the Central Valley.

However, the way the question was asked may have something to do with this disparity. The question described the Proposition 30 tax that exists today. Poll respondents were asked if the taxes on incomes over $250,000 and the quarter cent sales tax should be extended. But, the quarter cent sales tax portion of the Prop. 30 tax measure is not included in either of the extension plans that were filed.

Could Central Valley voters have focused on the sales tax piece and would their answers be different if they knew the extension only affected high-end income taxpayers?

Split-roll property tax

Once again, PPIC asked about splitting the property tax roll under Proposition 13 treating commercial property differently than residential property by taxing commercial property according to current market value. Likely voters approved of the idea by 55 percent, with 39 percent opposed.

But this basic question doesn’t inform potential voters of consequences related to this issue. There was no effort to deal with either the potential positives or negatives of changing the property tax system. Those issues will certainly be aired during an expensive campaign over a split roll and undoubtedly would lead to different results than the poll currently reflects.

Two other taxes that are being discussed received quite different results. An oil extraction tax found 49 percent support with likely voters; a cigarette tax was supported by 66 percent of likely voters.

There could be a lot of money spent in a campaign opposed to these taxes and a fair amount of change in support. However, looking at all the tax measures at this moment in time, if the old rule were applied that an initiative needs to have at least 60 percent support in early polls to have a fighting chance at passing, then only the cigarette tax looks possible at this time.

Of course, if the ballot is full of tax proposals the old rules may not apply.