The century-long and often tortured history of California making law through ballot measures took a new turn Thursday when the state Supreme Court blocked an initiative that would have made it much more difficult to raise state and local taxes.
Unanimously, the court agreed with Gov. Gavin Newsom and a Legislature controlled by fellow Democrats that the Taxpayer Protection Act, as it’s called shorthand, would be a revision of the state constitution and cannot be proposed via initiative, rather than a constitutional amendment as its proponents contended.
“No speculation regarding potential future consequences is needed to conclude that the TPA is a revision on its face,” the opinion declared. “The measure would fundamentally restructure the most basic of governmental powers. The TPA would exclude the levying of new taxes from the Legislature’s control by requiring voter approval of all such measures.”
