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By Jon Coupal
The risk of election fraud has been a national topic of conversation, but while some people have been focused on mail-in ballots and voting technology, a different type of corruption has been flying under the radar: the use of public funds to campaign for tax increases.
The Free Speech clauses of the federal and state Constitutions prohibit the use of governmentally compelled monetary contributions (including taxes) to support or oppose political campaigns. In 1976, the California Supreme Court ruled, “The use of the public treasury to mount an election campaign which attempts to influence the resolution of issues which our Constitution leaves to the ‘free election’ of the people (see Const., art. II, § 2) … presents a serious threat to the integrity of the electoral process.” Stanson v. Mott (1976) 17 Cal.3d 206, 218.
Both the state and local governments sometimes stretch the law to its breaking point by claiming that their advocacy is simply “education.” They don’t always get away with it.
From January to March 2017, the County of Los Angeles spent almost $1 million in public funds on a multimedia campaign urging voters to support Measure H, a one-quarter percent sales tax increase to pay for homelessness services. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association filed a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission as well as a lawsuit seeking to enforce the law that bars the public treasury from taking sides in an election.
As a result, the County of Los Angeles was fined $1.35 million, the largest fine ever imposed against any agency in California.
HJTA will be watching to make sure local governments don’t use public funds to campaign against a November 2024 ballot measure, the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act, which includes important provisions to ensure that any tax increases are fully disclosed to voters and approved exactly as the state constitution requires, without loopholes or tricks.
California taxpayers are all too familiar with deceptive practices in initiative campaigns, either statewide or local proposals. A measure that claims to “protect taxpayers” or guarantees “strict accountability” is often a tax increase, or a bond measure that saddles voters with thirty years of debt payments. The campaign committees behind these anti-taxpayer measures frequently include the word “taxpayer” in their names, like “Taxpayers for Common Sense” or “Taxpayers for Traffic Relief.”
To read the entire column, please click here.
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