Senate Bill 1021, introduced by state Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, would allow school districts to impose different parcel tax rates on different types of property. That means commercial, industrial, residential and multifamily residential could see different tax bills for properties of equal value.

SB1021 is essentially split-roll at the local level, Jennifer Barrera, a policy advocate for the California Chamber of Commerce, explained on CalChamber’s website. It would allow school districts to pass parcel taxes just against commercial property.

Alameda County’s parcel tax overturned by courts

The bill comes in response to a controversial parcel tax adopted in Alameda County that was ultimately thrown out by the courts. In 2008, more than two-thirds of Alameda County voters approved Measure H, which imposed a $120 parcel tax on residential and small commercial properties and a substantially higher parcel tax — up to $9,500 a year — on large commercial parcels.

Last June, a unanimous state appeals court overturned the parcel tax. In Borikas v. Alameda Unified School District, the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco found that the parcel tax violated the requirement that taxes “apply uniformly to all taxpayers or all real property within the district.”

The bill’s author said that the issue is one of local control, granting local districts the power to set different tax rates for each community’s needs.

“Under the recent court decision, school districts can no longer apply higher or lower rates to parcels based on commercial, industrial, or residential classification of the parcel,” Wolk’s office argued, according to the Senate’s legislative analysis. “SB1021 restores this needed local control by allowing school district boards to structure its tax according to local values and priorities.”

CalChamber: Unfair job-killer bill

Opponents of the bill include CalChamber, the California Business Properties Association, the California Association of Realtors, the California Grocers Association, the California Mortgage Bankers Association, the Family Winemakers of California, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the California Manufacturers and Technology Association and the California Building Industry Association. The opponents are worried SB1021 will lead to school districts targeting parcel taxes on businesses and commercial property owners.

“At a time when California officials should be doing everything in their power to attract and retain jobs, this legislation takes exactly the opposite approach by targeting employers for even higher taxes if they stay here,” said David Kline, vice-president of the California Taxpayers Association. “This bill would allow a free-for-all parcel tax system, with no limits on what rates school districts could levy, and would create opportunities for massive tax hikes targeted at businesses of all sizes.”

The state’s business leaders and taxpayer advocates also say the bill is an end run around Proposition 13, the state’s landmark 1978 initiative that placed a cap on property taxes. With other “add-on” property taxes and fees, such as parcel taxes, Mello-Roos fees, and assessment districts, many property owners pay substantially more than Prop. 13’s base rate of 1 percent of the property’s value.

Higher rate applied to different properties

In addition to applying different tax rates to commercial and residential properties, SB1021 authorizes school districts to target individual owners for higher tax rates. Under the bill, school districts would be allowed to treat multiple parcels of real property as one parcel for tax purposes.

“Under this provision, a school district could aggregate multiple, smaller parcels owned by one owner to capture all the properties under a square footage parcel tax,” CalChamber warned in a recent legislative alert. “Additionally, a school district could impose a parcel tax based upon the use of one parcel within multiple parcels owned by the same owner, even if those other parcels are not used for the same purpose.”

Despite recent national headlines of the state’s declining business climate, the legislature is expected to pass the bill, in part because it only requires majority approval of the Legislature. Traditionally, most tax increases are subject to two-thirds approval. However, SB1021 isn’t technically a tax increase, according to the legislature’s attorneys.

However, Gov. Jerry Brown is running for re-election and likely would veto the tax increase. In his 2010 campaign, he promised that no new taxes would be imposed without voter approval. And when he campaigned for Proposition 30, which increased taxes $7 billion, he insisted it would be temporary. SB1021 would allow permanent tax increases.

By Katy Grimes

SACRAMENTO — In a move which disregarded the very issue in the bill, Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 6 killed an important transparency bill Tuesday before it was even heard.

Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen, R- Modesto, hadn’t even testified on ACA 4, which she authored, before the bill was sent to the suspense file by the committee. This tactic prevented the committee members from even voting for or against increasing transparency in state government.

ACA 4 would require that proposed legislation be in print for 72 hours before a vote can be taken. This would allow lawmakers and the public to review and analyze bills before they are voted on.

“It was disappointing to learn, before we even began testimony, that the bill would be moved to the suspense file, where most bills effectively go to die,” said Olsen in a statement immediately following the hearing. “However, I intend keep working with members of the committee to address concerns and make sure that Californians have the open and transparent government that they deserve.”

State Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, who is carrying the identical SCA 10, in the Senate, testified in support of the measure, but left the hearing right after her testimony, leaving Olsen to field sometimes antagonistic questioning.

ACA 4/SCA 10

ACA 4 and SCA 10 would place a measure on the ballot to allow voters to change the California Constitution to require all bills to be in print for 72 hours before legislators could vote on them.

New York and Florida already have similar laws in place, Olsen said.

Every year the California Legislature is faced with thousands of proposed bills. After extensive public review and input in legislative committees, the Legislature approves most of these bills, which then go to the governor for his signature.

Olsen said that too many bills forgo extensive public review due to the gut-and-amend process, by which the language of one bill is “gutted” and replaced with something entirely new. Usually the process occurs in the last days of the legislative session, so bills receive little or no review before being voted on.

“Unfortunately, there is an increasing trend for the Legislature to forgo the usual process and approve a brand-new law with no public review at all,” said Olsen. “Some bills are passed and sent to the governor before even we legislators have had the time to read them or to hear from our constituents. This needs to stop.”

Committee Chairman, Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield, D-Los Angeles, and Assemblywoman Holly Mitchell, D-San Bernardino, challenged Olsen on the need for the bill, claiming that the process already works, and inferred that more transparency would not necessarily be a good thing.

Olsen said critics of her proposal claim the current legislative process actually needs more secrecy to protect against special interests who will pressure the Legislature not to approve important laws that are unpopular but necessary.

“If that is the case, why have public hearings at all?” Olsen asked. “The truth is that the very special interests who oppose sunshine are the same ones who thrive in the back room, where only they are allowed.”

Surprisingly, given the importance of the bill, other than myself there were no media at the hearing.

Gutting transparency

Too often, the gut-and-amend process happens on the way to a bill.

Gut-and-amend bills can be particularly insidious. This secretive process often leaves lawmakers, as well as the public, little or no time to review entirely new legislation dropped into an old bill. And usually, the subject of the legislation has nothing to do with the bill’s previous legislative issue.

Gut-and-amend typically happens with budget issues and heavy special interest legislation. Lawmakers have complained loudly for years that the gut-and-amend process has been grossly abused by whichever party is in power.

Olsen said this problem can be fixed once and for all by amending the California Constitution, instead of through piecemeal legislation which can easily be bypassed.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant

“One hundred years ago, in 1913, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote that ‘sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants,’ an idea that led to the concept of sunshine in government,” Olsen wrote in a recent op-ed. “Brandeis also wrote, ‘the most important political office is that of private citizen.’ The three-day-in-print rule recognizes both of his observations.”

Supporters at the hearing for ACA 4 included Philip Ung from Common Cause, Paul Smith from the Rural County Representatives of California, Jim Ewert of the California Newspaper Publishers Association, and Dan Carrigg of the League of California Cities.

There was no opposition to the bill, and the committee analysis was wobbly. The analysis supported Blumenfield’s and Mitchell’s argument that the legislature should have minimum transparency, and is not subject to the transparency requirements required of state agencies.

The bill will only come off the suspense file if and when the committee decides to take it up again, said Olsen.

“Open government and public participation is at the heart of our democratic process,” Olsen said. “Transparency and public participation are the best safeguards against special interest self-dealing and bad lawmaking.”

By Katy Grimes

SACRAMENTO — Anti-gun lawmakers in the California state Senate and Assembly have been busy advancing legislation to further control guns.

On March 7, the state Senate passed SJR 1, a resolution by state Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis. It urges the U.S. Congress and President Barack Obama to enact a comprehensive gun violence prevention policy, including prohibiting the sale of military-style assault weapons and “high-capacity magazines.” It also encouraged strengthening criminal background checks.

The resolution essentially was another California finger-wagging measure aimed at shaming the rest of the country into following the Golden State’s lead. Wolk and colleagues are feeling emboldened by President Barack Obama’s recent executive orders purportedly aimed at reducing gun violence. Obama even called the issue a “public health crisis.”

“The president is determined to resurrect a previously failed Clinton tactic to build public support for stringent gun control gun regulations premised upon trumped-up ‘guns as a public disease’ rationale based upon federally-funded medical pseudo-research,” Forbes’ Larry Bell recently wrote.

Obama declared:

“While year after year, those who oppose even modest gun-safety measures have threatened to defund scientific or medical research into the causes of gun violence, I will direct the Centers for Disease Control to go ahead and study the best ways to reduce it.”

Said Bell, “Perhaps the president has forgotten that the CDC has previously been funded, then later defunded, regarding medical research for gun violence.  His directive, if funded again by Congress, would end a virtual 17-year ban which stipulates, quite appropriately, that none of CDC’s federal financing can be used to advocate or promote gun control…exactly what CDC was originally doing.”

Meanwhile, back in California…

“SJR 1 doesn’t change California law,” said Wolk. “Rather, it aims to bring federal law in line with California law, which already prohibits the possession of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, requires universal background checks, and a 10-day waiting or ‘cooling- off’ period for the purchase and transfer of firearms.”

SJR 1 “urges” the President and Congress to take the necessary steps to ensure all states report to the federal background check system. But the resolution is just a resolution, and doesn’t specify how to enforce this requirement. It “urges.”

“Since few states regulate assault weapons and high-capacity assault magazines, and because California’s borders are porous, Californians continue to be victimized by weapons purchased elsewhere and brought illegally into our state,” said Wolk, using the same tired “porous border” argument as her colleagues who oppose gun ownership.

Wolk said she is authoring the resolution at the behest of Napa area Democratic Rep. Mike Thompson, a Vietnam War veteran and sport hunter, who was appointed by House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco to head the Democratic Caucus’s Gun Violence Prevention Task Force in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“Thompson likes to tout his firearms bona fides: hunter, gun owner and a tour in Vietnam with an assault rifle,” wrote my CalWatchdog.com colleague Dave Roberts. “But the National Rifle Association doesn’t consider Thompson a gun rights supporter, scoring him just 17 percent on gun rights votes in 2012. There’s also not a lot of gun rights support on the rest of the task force — eight of its 12 members received scores of zero by the NRA.”

“This measure supports the efforts of the President, Congressman Thompson, and others who are working to take comprehensive federal action to prevent gun violence while protecting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens,” Wolk said on the Senate floor during debate Thursday. “Without a comprehensive federal approach to curbing gun violence, our laws will fall short of providing the security our citizens expect.”

The San Francisco treatment

The state Senate also recently passed SB 140, by Senator Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, which would allow the Department of Justice to take illegal firearms away from convicted felons, the mentally unstable and parolees. But existing laws already ban guns for such people.

SB 140 would appropriate $24 million from the Dealers’ Record of Sale Special Account to the Department of Justice to address the backlog in the Armed Prohibited Persons System.

SB 140 allows the California Department of Justice to use “existing resources” to enhance the identification and confiscation of handguns and assault weapons in the hands of convicted felons, persons who are determined to be mentally unstable, and others who have criminal backgrounds that prevent them from legally possessing guns. That’s how the Democratic-controlled Senate wants this bill described.

However, the Firearms Policy Coalition describes SB 140 a little differently:

“Takes millions of unconstitutionally-collected Dealer Record of Sales funds to compensate for the failure of more than 500 local law enforcement agencies not enforcing existing gun laws. Uses Dealer Record of Sales funds to pay for CA DOJ expansion, including raids and confiscation of weapons from those whom the State deems to be prohibited based on unreliable data from an untrustworthy list.”

“Our reinvestment in this statewide identification program will help eliminate a troubling backlog and growing mountain of illegal weapons, which threatens public safety in our communities and prevents us from enforcing existing firearms laws,” Leno said.

But the Firearms Policy Coalition said, “This bill would require DOJ to create reports politicians would use to advance their anti-gun agenda and does not set limits on how DOJ may use the re-appropriated funds.”

The California Department of Justice has identified 19,784 Californians who illegally own firearms. The new bills would do nothing to help reduce that number. Instead, law-abiding Californians would be prosecuted for defending themselves.