how all local governments cheat on ballot measures

Elections Code 13119 is derived from enactments that implemented Proposition 7 (1911). Proposition 7 was an amendment to the California Constitution that provided the ability of voters to directly approve or disapprove laws.

See our analyses of the 2021 Alameda County Civil Grand Jury report below. However, there is also breaking news on this cheating. On October 7, 2022, the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury issued its report on the same topic, condemning the cheating. The title of the report is If You Only Read the Ballot, You Are Being Duped. Return to this page for our analysis on this report as well. We'll also briefly discuss how to get your county's civil grand jury to do its own investigation.

The Initiative Process

We're going to briefly describe what Proposition 7 did. If you think you know, you, like most lawyers, judges, and public officials, you are likely wrong.

Proposition 7 begins in the voter guide on page 3, column 3 under the heading: "7. Senate Constitutional Amendment No. 22."

It continues on page 5, column 3; then it continues on page 7, column 3, and it ends on page 11, column 1.

Proposition 7 amended Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution at that time. It was very lengthy. It has since been broken up into smaller chunk, most of which now appear in Article II, Section 8 et seq.

As relevant to this discussion, the important part of Proposition 7 was its last paragraph, which began: "The initiative and referendum powers of the people are hereby further reserved to the electors of each county, city and county, city and town of this state, to be exercised under such procedures as may be provided by law. ... In the submission to the electors of any measure under this section, all officers shall be guided by the general laws of this state, except as herein provided. ..."

Prior to Proposition 7, some cities and counties already had an initiative or referendum process in their charters. Proposition 7 made it universal. At the time, special districts and school districts did not exist.

On April 8, 1911, prior to Proposition 7 passing in November 1911, the legislature granted counties the power to submit measures to the voters by both the board of supervisors and county electors when it enacted (Political Code 4058). This section would have become effective on January 2, 1912.

On January 2, 1912, after Proposition 7 passed, the legislature amended the initiative and referendum process for counties (Political Code 4058) and enacted it for cities (uncodified).

The enabling statute for counties, with respect to initiatives had provisions for both the electors, by petition, and the board of supervisors, without a petition, to submit a measure to the voters.

In the very first paragraph of Political Code 4058, the electors of the county were granted the power "by a petition."

Any proposed ordinance may be submitted to the board of supervisors by a petition filed with the county clerk after being signed by qualified electors of the county ...

Later, in Political Code 4058, the board of supervisors was granted the same power "without a petition therefor."

The board of supervisors may submit to the people, without a petition therefor, a proposition for the repeal of any adopted ordinance or for amendments thereto or for the enactment of any new ordinance to be voted upon at any succeeding general or special election ...

The enabling statute for cities, with respect to initiatives had provisions for both the electors, by petition, and the legislative body of the city or town, without a petition, to submit a measure to the voters.

Any proposed ordinance may he submitted to the legislative body of such city or town by a petition filed with the clerk of such legislative body after being signed by qualified electors of the city or town ...

The legislative body of the city or town may submit to the people, without a petition therefor, a proposition for the repeal of any adopted ordinance, or for amendments thereto, or for the enactment of any new ordinance, to be voted upon at any succeeding regular or special municipal city or town election ...

What both the enabling act for counties and for cities have in common is the exact language for the ballot label.

The ballots used when voting upon said proposed ordinance shall have printed thereon the words "Shall the ordinance (stating the nature thereof) be adopted?"

The California Supreme Court has long recognized that submitting measures to the voters has always been described by the word "initiative." See Friends of Sierra Madre v. City of Sierra Madre (2001) 25 Cal.4th 165:

This case presents an issue important to local governments and those interested in historic preservation: whether an initiative ballot measure, generated by a city council rather than by voter petition, submitting to the voters an ordinance that removes a structure or structures from historic preservation status is a project subject to the California Environmental Quality Act [citations omitted].

This is important, because "initiative" has, in the common parlance, been mis-referenced as meaning only initiative by voter petition. "Initiative," as used in Proposition 7 was not expressly defined, therefore, only a court, according to the maxims of statutory interpretation, can determine its legal meaning.

That was the point of this short historical diversion[BETTER-WORD]. Initiative means any measure submitted to the voters to enact, as opposed to repeal (which is called a referendum), law. The legislature referred to the enactment and repeal procedures in the descriptive clause for each act referenced above as "direct legislation."

Fast Forward 120 Years

Political Code 4058 is the ancestor of much of what is now Chapter 3 of Measures Submitted to the Voters of the Elections Code, (county measures). Over the course of time, the part about the ballot label was moved out of the "Measures Submitted to the Voters" division into what is now Division 13 (Ballots, Sample Ballots, and Voter Pamphlets), section 13119. Up until 2016, section 13119 was substantially unchanged from its 1912 origins. In 1912, it read: "Shall the ordinance (stating the nature thereof) be adopted?" (quotes in the statute). Since 2016 (AB-195), it reads "Shall the measure (stating the nature thereof) be adopted?"

Bringing us to date.

In 2015, section 13119 was amended (AB-809) to add subsection (b) which imposed mandatory ("shall") disclosure requirements on local measure ballot labels ("ballot label") for tax measures.

In 2017, due to a misinformed court decision in Los Angeles County over Measure M (2016, Metro tax), the legislature made a purported "technical correction" (AB-195) which added subsection (c) prohibiting language favorable to passing a measure and subsection (d) defining the local governing bodies to which the section applies, which preempts city and county charters. The language for subsection (c) is substantively identical to the language used for state propositions (Elections Code 9051(c)). The mandatory ballot label text in subsection (a) was changed to "Shall the measure (stating the nature thereof) be adopted?" (quotes in the statute, emphasis supplied.)

Needless to say, we wouldn't even be here, but for the lawyers and their entourage selling bond and tax services to local governing bodies, who have, as if by a secret agreement, simply ignored every mandatory provision of section 13119. So have every public official who has a ministerial duty in connection with local measure elections.

They all knew (the lawyers positively knew, public officials may be just too stupid) that implementing the mandatory ("shall") provisions of 13119 would mean an end to the gravy train. For the lawyers and their cartel counterparts, it would mean that they may have to find new work to make up for the lost revenue generated by hoodwinking the public to pass local bond and tax measures. For the public officials and public unions that run local governing bodies, it would mean that they wouldn't be able to spend like drunken sailors (with apologies to drunken sailors, who spend their own money, for comparing them to the thieves in public office).

So why aren't all counties, cities, special districts, school and college districts all complying with the mandate of 13119? Greed and power.

See What Must Be Printed on the Ballot for a thorough discussion and example of a school bond ballot label that complies with the law.

Section 13119(a)

13119. (a) The ballots used when voting upon a measure proposed by a local governing body or submitted to the voters as an initiative or referendum measure pursuant to Division 9 (commencing with Section 9000), including a measure authorizing the issuance of bonds or the incurrence of debt, shall have printed on them the words "Shall the measure (stating the nature thereof) be adopted?" To the right or below the statement of the measure to be voted on, the words "Yes" and "No" shall be printed on separate lines, with voting targets. If a voter marks the voting target next to the printed word "Yes," the voter's vote shall be counted in favor of the adoption of the measure. If the voter marks the voting target next to the printed word "No," the voter's vote shall be counted against its adoption.

The Title Cheat

A ballot label is different than a statewide proposition ballot title and summary. A statewide proposition ballot label is specifically defined as a ballot title and summary in Elections Code section 303.5(b). A ballot title and summary is governed by different rules as well, the most significant of which, in the context of this discussion, is that the proposition proponent does not get to write the ballot title and summary. That task is assigned to the attorney general, an arguably disinterested third party.

In common parlance, much confusion is generated by the press and the school bonds cartel, either intentionally or not, by sloppily referring to a ballot label as a title and summary. The confusion tends to legitimize the tactic used by local governing bodies to print a separate title preceding the question on the ballot. There is no section of the Elections Code that even hints that such a title can be added. With respect to initiatives by petition, there are sections that provide for a circulating title and summary (section 303.5(b)) which appears on the petition only and not on the ballot. Another practice in which corrupt local governing bodies engage is to refer to the measure itself by a self-serving, biased title of their own choosing. You know, like our Congress and state legislature do. While these titles may be used in campaign materials, they should never appear on the ballot. For example, the title for the TPGAA (referenced below) will not appear on your ballot. It's just a handy way to refer to a proposition for discussion purposes.

In fact, county registrars printed titles on the ballot for 20 of the 98 local measures on the June 7, 2022 ballot and for 112 of the 443 local measures on the November 8, 2022 ballot. Every one of those ballot labels with a title was illegal under the Elections Code. Every one of those ballot labels was a cheat, designed to influence voters to cast a yes vote. That means the title cheat was used about 20% of the time in 2022, when it should be 0%.

The Leading "To" Cheat

The most common cheat with respect to section 13119(a), however, is the leading "To" cheat. County registrars printed leading "To" ballot labels on the ballot for 39 of the 98 local measures on the June 7, 2022 ballot and for 162 of the 443 local measures on the November 8, 2022 ballot. That means the leading "to" cheat was used about 40% of the time in 2022, when it should be 0%.

The Bullets Cheat

This cheat first appeared on our radar in 2018. It may have been used prior to that, but confirming an earlier use would require examination of the actual printed ballots. That's due the California Election Data Archive being indifferent about typographical enhancements on ballot labels it archives. Basically, the cheat involves using bullets to highlight the points that the corrupt local governing body wants the voters to focus on. The points, as you may suspect are the tax amount or the tax rate or the duration. The points are the "to" phrases that provide the reasons to vote yes, in accordance with the survey that the local governing body conducted. Below is an example:

To provide funding for essential city services including:

• Reducing gangs, drugs and crime
• Providing fire protection, paramedic, and quick 9-1-1 emergency response
• Fixing streets and potholes
• Addressing homelessness
• Keeping public areas safe, healthy, clean and graffiti free
• Supporting local businesses

shall a City of Lake Elsinore Ordinance establishing a one-cent sales tax be approved, providing approximately $10,000,000 annually for general city services until ended by voters, with citizen oversight, independent audits, and all funds controlled locally? [Riverside County, Measure Z, November 8, 2022]

In 2018, the bullet cheat appeared to be on the rise. Santa Clara county appeared to be the epicenter of the cheat. Over the last two election cycles, it appears to died down, or perhaps even tamped down by registrars who felt uncomfortable going a bridge too far. It would require a significant research effort to provide a reason for the decline.

The Typographical Enhancements Cheat

This has a long history. It is most commonly associated with the title cheat. In that case, the title is printed with enhanced typographical features on the ballot. The most common enhancements are bolded text, all upper case text, and underlined text for the title. Obviously, its a non-verbal clue to voters to what's important, at least in the eyes of the local governing body.

Recently, the cheat has been expanded to ballot labels without a title. We've seen it in connection with "NO money for salaries" (Butte County, Measure J, November 8, 2022) and "without raising taxes above current rates" (Los Angeles County, Measure ES, November 8, 2022). Both of those are, of course, bald-faced lies, but the registrar's enhance the ballot label to direct voter attention to the lies in order to influence a yes note.

The Mandatory Form

All ballot labels are mandated ("shall") to be in the specific form that was first enacted in 1912, as discussed above. Any ballot label that deviates from that form is violating the law in order to gain an advantage, to cheat. The most popular cheat is to begin the ballot label with "To do this, to do that, and to do the other thing..." Every one of those prepositional phrases beginning with "to" is an argument. It's a reason to vote in favor of the measure. Often times, the ballot label will have a list of arguments with the last item in the list being the actual purpose. This is blatant in general tax (majority vote) local measures, where the list ends in "and for other general purposes" or similar language. That's critical because if the general purposes were left out, it would be considered a special tax (two-thirds vote). The reason for the list of "purposes" (arguments) is to fraudulently get the voter to believe that the proceeds from the tax will be actually spent on all those "essential" services. It won't be spent on that. It will be spent on salaries and pensions. The cheaters are smart enough to know that those are not selling points. Thank goodness this practice may end with the passage of the ("TPGAA"), the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act which has already qualified for the November 2024 ballot. We say "may" only because the cheaters don't follow the law as it is now, so why would anyone expect them to follow a new law? Unfortunately, the TPGAA does not impose any penalties on those who violate its provisions. As someone famous once said, "A law without a consequence is just a suggestion."

Of the three subsections in section 13119, this is the most objective provision. The ballot label is either in the required form or it's not. Unfortunately, the civil grand juries that investigated ballot label abuse, didn't grasp that there are three officials that already have the authority to reject ballot labels that don't comply with the law -- the elections official (county registrar), the county counsel, and the county board of supervisors. Any one or all of them can reject any of the measure materials that a local governing body files. Why? Because the local governing body cannot force the county to conduct its election. It can make the request, but the registrar, as the elections official, has a ministerial duty to reject any materials that don't comply with the law. County counsel can back up the registrar with its legal analysis. Both the registrar and counsel can also recommend that the board of supervisors, which has the ultimate authority, decline to grant the local governing bodies' requests. The civil grand juries' recommendations that ballot labels be submitted for review and approval by anyone other than a judge, violates the California constitution's separation of powers because it usurps judicial authority. But that's another story.

Here's a little known fact regarding statewide propositions that is relevant to the ballot label issue. Before the legislature changed the law to give the attorney general the authority to write the ballot title and summary, the ballot title and summary were written by a panel of court of appeals judges. So, as we have already said, the civil grand jury solutions are neither legal nor feasible. You're never going to find the proverbial honest man. But just start enforcing the penal provisions that already exist and you can bet your bottom dollar that every county registrar will suddenly find religion.

The only better solution than a bench trial by a judge to make the determination of whether a ballot label complies with the law would be to have a trial by jury. It could probably be completely done in an hour or two. Set the trial date so the lawyers can be prepared. Grab some jurors sitting around the jury room by a random draw. Present the jurors with the ballot label and the statute. Give the lawyers a few minutes to argue their case. Send the jurors off to deliberate for a set maximum period of time and then vote. Anything less than a unanimous vote to accept would mean the ballot label and the measure are rejected for the election. Live with the results - no appeals. The jurors would not be able to rewrite the ballot label like a judge would. It would just be a decision whether to accept or reject the ballot label. If the jury rejects it, the measure does not appear on the ballot for that election. Just the prospect of a jury trial would change the landscape. A criminal trial, if appropriate, could come later.

If the county officials actually exercise their ministerial duties, an aggrieved local governing body can always take them to court, where they'd have to convince a judge. However, there are already two modern precedents (before the last revisions to section 13119) that have struck all the leading "to" arguments from ballot labels. See McDonough v. Superior Court (2012) 204 Cal.App.4th 1169 and Huntington Beach v. Superior Court (2002) 94 Cal.App.4th 1417.

No one should be promoting anything other than compliance with the existing law under the existing statutes. What should be happening is district attorneys prosecuting elections officials (like the county registrar) and the local governing bodies for failure to perform their ministerial duties under section 13119. The penal statutes already exist in Elections Code section 18002 and, specifically for 13100 et seq. violations, section 18401. But guess what. If voters don't make the criminal complaints to get the process started, its not going to happen. Anyone in California or even outside California can file the criminal complaints. It's not a civil suit, so there is no standing issue. Why haven't you done it? Why won't you do it now? There is a five-year statute of limitations on section 18002 and a two-year statute of limitations on 18401. And, if there is a pattern of criminal behavior, which there is, a prosecutor may even be able to reach back to violations that are beyond the statute of limitations. Get busy! It's your money they're stealing! If you don't care enough to do something about it, why should anyone else?

Section 13119(b)

Even though the discussion below is about the disclosure requirements of section 13119(b), we included both the 2015 and the 2017 versions of the statute, including a substantial portion of section 13119(a). You'll see why as we go along.

13119. (a) The ballots used when voting upon a proposed county, city, or district ordinance submitted to the voters of the respective local government as an initiative measure pursuant to Division 9 (commencing with Section 9000) shall have printed on them the words "Shall the ordinance (stating the nature thereof) be adopted?" ...

(b) If the proposed ordinance imposes a tax or raises the rate of a tax, the ballot shall include in the statement of the ordinance to be voted on the amount of money to be raised annually and the rate and duration of the tax to be levied. [AB-809, 2015.] Emphasis added.

13119. (a) The ballots used when voting upon a measure proposed by a local governing body or submitted to the voters as an initiative or referendum measure pursuant to Division 9 (commencing with Section 9000), including a measure authorizing the issuance of bonds or the incurrence of debt, shall have printed on them the words "Shall the measure (stating the nature thereof) be adopted?" ...

(b) If the proposed measure imposes a tax or raises the rate of a tax, the ballot shall include in the statement of the measure to be voted on the amount of money to be raised annually and the rate and duration of the tax to be levied. [AB-195, 2017. Emphasis added.]

This subsection was added by AB-809. It was ignored. After the AB-195 changes that you can see above, there have been four attempts to repeal it. The school bonds cartel hates it, so they flout it. Intentionally. We're going to take credit for squashing the first three attempts. The first two attempts were squashed in the court of public opinion. See Screwing Taxpayers Again: AB-2848 and Caving in to School Bonds Cartel: AB-2848. We were able to get Dan Walters to lend his opinion on AB-2848 as well, with an article he published at CalMatters in May 2018, after we suggested a column supported by these articles. The third attempt made it to Newsom's desk, where our quick-strike phone call campaign persuaded him to veto it. The fourth attempt was a confusing interdependent two-bill approach, where the repeal depended on the enactment of a specific, separate bill. It didn't make it out of the legislature.

In 2016, the first year where the new disclosures were required on the ballot label for local tax measures, the registrars clearly didn't care. There were 241 local measures authorizing bonds on the ballot in 2016. Not a single ballot label for a bond measure complied with either 13119(a) or 13119(b) or 13119(c). When we say that they didn't comply, we mean that none of those ballot labels were in the prescribed form, nor did any of them contain any of the three disclosure requirements, nor were they free from argument, lies, partiality, and prejudice. AB-809 was a massive failure mostly because of sloppy legislation. This failure reached the ears of the legislature. You can see how the legislature changed the language (above) when it enacted AB-195 in 2017. As a result, in 2016, only a few of the local tax measures on the ballot contained any of the three disclosures. Of the few ballot labels that contained the duration disclosure, for forever taxes they paid lip service to the law with "until ended by voters" appearing in nine ballot labels and none disclosing that it was a permanent tax. The bottom line is that $60 billion in bonds were passed without a single voter, unless they know to read the tax rate statement, knowing how much their vote would cost them in taxes.

The failure of AB-809 occurred in 44 different counties with 44 different registrars. The response to AB-809 was coordinated. The people running local governments talk to each other through associations that taxpayers fund. They talk to their lawyers and advisors who also talk to each other. As soon as AB-809 was signed by the governor in 2015, the machinery to evade it went into overdrive. They outfoxed the legislature and the voters, once again. The happened again with AB-195 in 2017. But AB-195, if the letter of the law were to be followed, would put a huge crimp in their pocketbook. So, they tried to repeal it, four times, and when that failed, they just continued to ignore it as they do today.

Even six years later, some "don't even care" registrars are still conducting elections for local tax measures that are actually completely missing one or more of the three 13119(b) requirements. This may be indicative of registrars' belief that they are just clerks and print on the ballot whatever the local governing body files.

The big disclosure issue with section 13119(b) is the "duration of the tax to be levied" disclosure. You can see from the ballot labels that were written for the June 2018 primary (Screwing Taxpayers Again: AB-2848) that right from the beginning the school bonds cartel was intent on not disclosing the duration of the tax on the ballot, even though the Tax Rate Statement printed in the voter information guide provides the value expressed as the fiscal year (e.g., 2062-63) in which the ad valorem property taxes are expected to end.

It appears that, for bond measures, "while bonds are outstanding" is the winning phrase to hide the duration from the voters. The actual duration calculated on the Tax Rate Statement is typically in the neighborhood of 30 to 40 years. It's only when there is an extremely (for bonds) short duration, that the ballot label writers actually disclose the duration. Why? Because it's an argument in favor of a yes vote. West Hills Community College District placed two different "short-term" bonds on the ballot on November 8, 2022 for different parts of the district that read like this.

To improve the Firebaugh Center including updating classroom technology, improving energy efficiency and water conservation, and upgrading campus security shall West Hills Community College District's measure authorizing $25.1 million in short-term bonds be adopted with estimated levies of less than 3˘ per $100 of assessed value (approximately $1,694,000 annually through 2039), legal interest rates, annual audits, citizens' oversight, no funds for administrator salaries, with all funds spent on local projects and not taken by the State and spent elsewhere? [Emphasis added.]

Of course the ballot label violates the "tax rate" disclosure of 13119(b) with the "levies of less than 3˘ per $100" language as well as 13119(a) and 13119(c). What does "less than" mean? How much less than? Part of the reason for this is likely that the tax rate from the Tax Rate Statement comes in at $24.95 per $100,000 which would translate to $0.02495 per $100, which probably would fluster anyone who got their education in a government school in California over the past 40 years.

And let's just briefly touch on that cheat too. There are two different laws, unrelated to the ballot label disclosure, that provide for the manner in which a tax rate may be expressed. One of them says "per $100" and the other "per $100,000." That's a 1000 multiplier difference. Quick! Calculate how much annual tax you'd pay on your $500,000 assessed value property based on 3 cents per $100. If the ballot label tax rate were expressed like it is in the tax rate statement, $30 per $100,000, you could quickly (hopefully) determine that you'd be paying $150 per year. Of course, you'd also have to know that "levy" means "tax" in order to understand that you are voting on a tax measure. Get the point?

For other taxes, the duration, is often reasonably short. The ballot label doesn't state the tax rate as "while the levy is in effect." It states the number of years, or the year in which it ends, or, sometimes, the date on which it ends. Even those ballot labels can be confusing when the measure is implementing a tax that won't begin until several years in the future.

Right up there in the fraud category with "while bonds are outstanding" is "until ended by voters." The tax to repay bonds will always end. At some point, your children or grandchildren will finally pay off the debt you voted for. All other types of taxes can be permanent. The following ballot label is the most creative we have ever seen for a permanent tax.

To fund the operational needs of the Cutler-Orosi Joint Unified School District facilities open to the community and develop a recreation department within the Cutler-Orosi area to promote youth activities including sports, arts, music, and other experiences that develop young people into healthy active, responsible citizens, shall the Cutler-Orosi Joint Unified School District levy a tax of $48.00 per parcel annually with an annual cost of living adjustment, initially raising $234,048 yearly, so long as the Cutler-Orosi School Board oversees the program and uses all proceeds to directly support the Cutler-Orosi Joint Unified sports facilities needs and the recreation department? [Fresno and Tulare County, Measure V, November 8, 2022. Emphasis added.]

But when you're at war with the voters ("All warfare is based on deception." Sun Tzu), the goal is to deceive. As the saying goes, everything is fair in love and war.

The deception on forever taxes is, perhaps, the most egregious fraud on ballot labels. If the tax passes, repealing the tax would require voters to get thousands, for some jurisdictions, hundreds of thousands, of valid signatures on a petition to even get near "ending" the tax. But in case you believe your local governing body would play fair, you should disabuse yourself of that thought right now.

A senior citizen voter collected thousands of signatures on three separate petitions to repeal a local sales tax. The city of Menifee (Republicans, for those of you may believe cheating is a partisan sport) deep-sixed the first two. This is the ballot label that the corrupt city attorney wrote after the voter's third petition was finally certified.

Shall the measure repealing the voter-approved, locally-controlled Measure DD sales tax generating over $10,000,000 per year in local funding that cannot be taken by the state be used to maintain Menifee 911 emergency response; school and police patrols; street and road repairs; traffic reduction; senior and youth programs; parks and other general services, be adopted? [Riverside County, Measure M, November 3, 2020.]

Not a single voter in the city would have recognized that ballot label as connected with the circulating title and summary that the corrupt city attorney wrote for the petition.

This is the ballot label for Measure DD that the city used to pass the tax four years earlier. It was a general tax (majority vote), so notice the reference to "general services" at the end of the long list of arguments in favor of it. Clearly the city imbued the "ordinance" with God-like powers, including the ability to "reduce traffic congestion."

Shall Ordinance 2016-199 of the City of Menifee to reduce traffic congestion; improve/repair local interchanges/overpasses/streets/roads/bridges/potholes; maintain local police/fire protection/paramedics/9-1-1 emergency response times; prevent cuts to senior/disabled/youth programs; and provide other general services by enacting a 1˘ sales tax providing $6.2 million annually until ended by voters; requiring annual independent audits, all funds spent locally, be adopted? [Riverside County, Measurer DD, November 8, 2016.]

You can't make this stuff up. Your local governing bodies are desperate to get their hands on your money. The gravy train is about to hit the high-speed rail train head on. They've been corrupt all along. Now you get to see it.

Section 13119(c)

13119. (c) The statement of the measure shall be a true and impartial synopsis of the purpose of the proposed measure, and shall be in language that is neither argumentative nor likely to create prejudice for or against the measure.

This section was added by AB-195 in 2017.

For comparison, this is the substantively identical language that applies to statewide propositions that has been on the books for decades.

9051. (c) In providing the ballot title and summary, the Attorney General shall give a true and impartial statement of the purpose of the measure in such language that the ballot title and summary shall neither be an argument, nor be likely to create prejudice, for or against the proposed measure.

This subsection of 13119 was simply ignored -- by everyone -- from the beginning. Arguably, the rules set out in the subsection applied from 1912 forward, just like the rules for statewide measures. This is supported by appellate court opinions, under the general constitutional principle expressed in Stanson and a long line of earlier court opinions. That principle is usually expressed that the government cannot take sides in elections using public moneys. The ballots and the voter information guides are all printed and distributed with public moneys. The only exception was the ability to have arguments and rebuttals printed in the voter information guide. The exception was implemented on another principle that the courts have expressed that the government has a duty to provide materials that inform the electorate so that they can make an informed decision on how to vote.

When you're dealing with liars and cheaters, putting the law in writing does nothing unless there is a consequence for not following the law. The county district attorneys are derelict in their duty to prosecute those who use public moneys for campaign activity on the ballot.

The Measure Letter Cheat

This cheat is so provocative and so abused that it's surprising that's it lasted as long as it has without being challenged in court.

Elections Code section 13116 is about as clear as it gets.

13116. (a) In an election at which state, county, city, or other local measures are submitted to a vote of the voters, all state measures shall be numbered in numerical order, as provided in this chapter or division. All county, city, or other local measures shall be designated by a letter, instead of a figure, printed on the left margin of the square containing the description of the measure, commencing with the letter "A" and continuing in alphabetical order, one letter for each of these measures appearing on the ballot. Emphasis added.]

There are a few special cases where the statute makes exceptions. Although not provided anywhere in the statutes, some registrars have created a skip-over list, a list of letters that the registrar will not assign to any measure. While perhaps illegal, it is also innocuous in that the letters are removed from the alphabet for the purpose of assigning measure letters. It hurts no one and it benefits no one. There may be some historical reason for this practice. Another possibility is that the county superior court has made a ruling that the registrar can't use the letters in the skip list.

Before we describe the actual cheat, we need to describe another practice that is not sanctioned by law but which several counties have been using for many years. The situation arises in counties where there are lots of local governing bodies who all decide to put one or more measures on the ballot for the same election. When the number of measures exceeds the number of letters in the alphabet, what is the county registrar to do? The practice that has grown out of necessity is that the registrar will use a single letter for the first 26 measures, and then restart the alphabet with a doubled letter. For example, the 26th measure would get the letter Z and the 27th measure with get the paired letter AA. There's never been an election in any county, except Los Angeles (there are 84 local measures on the ballot in Los Angeles county in the November 8, 2022 election), where there have been more than 52 measures on the ballot for the same election. As a result, there has never been a 53rd measure being assigned the tripled letter AAA. Again, this practice seems innocuous as well, but the legislature should provide for it to make it legal or determine another way of dealing with these situations.

Now to Los Angeles county. In Los Angeles county, almost as soon as its corrupt registrar was hired away from his corrupt stint as the King County (Seattle), Washington registrar, the registrar began a formal ballot letter selection process and made it publicly available to all local governing bodies in the county via its letter designation form.

The gist of the patently illegal scheme is that a local governing body can chose a single letter or a combination of any two or three letters to be assigned to its local measures. The local governing body can make up to two alternative choices, in case its first choice is taken by another local measure on a first-come, first-served basis. There are thousands of letter combinations possible.

The practice gives the local governing bodies that choose to make a selection a competitive and marketing advantage by choosing letter combinations that the public can easily convert into an association with a local jurisdiction. So, instead of having to mentally associate Measure R with a Walnut Valley Unified school bond measure, the local governing body chooses the letter combination WV. So when voters see signs or get mailings with WV on them, the association is easy and natural. This is a marketers dream. So in 2018, the Mount San Antonio Community College District chose GO for its school bond measure. Thus, the district was able to execute its campaign slogan, "GO Mt. SAC!," with the help of the registrar's form. While the most common usage has been letters associated with the jurisdiction's name, the creative marketing campaigns are nearly unlimited. It was no accident that Los Angeles County itself chose letter M for its forever Metro (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) sales tax in 2016 and W for its forever water run-off (rain) parcel tax in 2018 and HHH for its huge homeless bond tax in 2016, all of which passed as special taxes with a 2/3 vote requirement. The county wasn't so lucky with its forever FD fire district parcel tax in 2020, but you can see that the scheme tends to favor passage in a sea of candidate and measure elections where the monetary cost to gain name recognition in the course of a two-month campaign is enormous.

On page 31 of the Municipal Information Booklet for the November 8, 2022 election, we find the following regarding measure letter assignments. Unlike almost everything else in the booklet, there is no reference to an Elections Code section. That's because there is no authority in the Elections Code for the registrar to do this.

REQUEST FOR LETTER DESIGNATION — Cities may request a specific letter designation in writing by E-83 using the letter designation form. An alternate choice should also be submitted, in case the requested letter designation has already been assigned to another jurisdiction. Specific letter designation requests are processed in the order received. The RR/CC will notify the City by E-81 if the requested letter designation is available or if another letter assignment has been made.

The Los Angeles county registrar subscribes to the old adage that rules are made to be broken. On its Letter Designation Form, it states the following rule:

The 3rd option for letter designations would be to create a unique letter designation that is not identified below using less than three letters of the alphabet. For example: County of Los Angeles USD Facilities Improvement measure could use unique letter designations such as CL, LA, LU, UC, LS

So how did following that rule work out for the November 8, 2022 election?

1. Santa Monica got HMP (hemp) for its forever cannabis business tax.
2. Long Beach got LBC for its charter amendment.
3. Long Beach Unified got LBU for its $1,700,000,000 school bond.
4. Pasadena Area College got PCC for its $565,000,000 school bond.
5. Palmdale Elementary got PRM for its $120,000,000 school bond.
6. Los Angeles got ULA (Unite LA?) for its initiative-by-petititon forever affordable housing tax. (Clearly, the city wants this measure to pass, since the city would have had to make the request on behalf of the petitioners.)
7. Carson got UUT for its forever utility users tax.

Don't you love it? Our question is how all these local governing bodies knew that they could break the illegal rules and get away with it. Might not the other local governing bodies with 74 measures have wanted to take advantage of breaking the illegal rule too? Custom three letter measure designations have been doled out for years in Los Angeles county. Why isn't the board of supervisors stopping this madness? Could they be as corrupt as the day is long? We're waiting for measure letter designations like FBI, CIA, SEC, IRS, and DOJ to show up on the ballot.

We have just (October 13, 2022) learned of a sworn complaint to the FPPC regarding this practice. The practice is clearly outside of the FPPC's jurisdiction, however, the FPPC formally forwarded the complaint to the Los Angeles County District Attorney for criminal prosecution. Where are those corruption-fighting DAs when you need them?

We have seen letters from local governing bodies in other counties that have requested that the registrar assign a specific letter to their measure, a la Los Angeles county. Most requests appear to have been ignored. However we know for a fact that Clovis Unified (Fresno County) was granted its request for the letter A for its March 2020 school bond measure. Of course, the elected district attorney being on the campaign committee for the measure had nothing to do with the request being granted. While the March 2020 Measure A failed, Clovis Unified put it back on the ballot in November 2020 as Measure A again and it passed. Wasn't that a stroke of luck that it could reuse all its campaign materials and name association for a second election? That's what we call a "green" election practice.

All in all, without the in-your-face letter assignment form that Los Angeles county uses, it would take a tremendous amount of research to determine whether favored local jurisdictions in other counties are granted similar requests.

Using public moneys "for any purpose not authorized by law" is a felony.

(a) Each officer of this state, or of any county, city, town, or district of this state, and every other person charged with the receipt, safekeeping, transfer, or disbursement of public moneys, who either: … ¶ 2. … or uses the same for any purpose not authorized by law; or … ¶ Is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for two, three, or four years, and is disqualified from holding any office in this state. Penal Code 424(a)(2)

The California Supreme Court has held that any law that authorizes the use of public moneys for campaign activities is unconstitutional.

Stanson

So what's the problem? Public officials in California, at every level, are corrupt. For a long time, we have had, not government under law, but, government by whatever it can get away with. Whose fault is this? For elected officials, it directly rests with the voters -- you. For appointed officials who are appointed by elected officials, it slightly more indirectly rests with the voters, too.

Think about this. When was the last time that your local district attorney, who you directly elect, prosecuted an elected public official? When was the last time a misuse of public moneys case was presented to a criminal grand jury? Once in a while, the news covers public corruption cases. What you may not notice, however, is that all those cases are brought by the United States Attorney, for a federal crime, usually bribery, which apparently is rampant as well.

Guess what. Local district attorneys are part of the corruption. That usually doesn't make anything but local news. In 2020, the Contra Costa county district attorney resigned after being charged in a federal indictment. It happens, but not often enough. Except for bribery, district attorneys don't control enough public moneys for the most widespread area of corruption -- misuse of public moneys.

Let's go back in time to about 10 years ago. You never saw a votable ballot before election day. When you went to a polling place and voted, it was on a small ballot card that you slipped into a device through which you made marks (votes) on the ballot card. The methods and devices varied by counties, but the actual ballots were small cards. Without the device to help you put the mark in the preferred place, you would have a hard time voting.

Now ballots are multi-page, folded, oversized paper documents with lots of space for printing all kinds of things. That was an opportunity in the eyes of some county registrars. They started adding text to the paper ballot, not only instructional text authorized by law (Elections Code section 13109 et seq.), but other text of their own choosing.

Headings and Section 13109

Section 13109, along with a few variants for special circumstances, describes in excruciating detail the order of the candidates and measures appearing on the ballot and the headings used to separate groupings and individual contests. It specifies the exact words and phrases to be printed on the ballot. It is mandatory.

We first learned of this cheat during the 2018 primary election. At that time, our practice was to contact every county registrar by phone prior to the election filing deadline and examine all the measure materials, if any, posted on the county's election web site prior to the ballots being printed. One small rural county caught our eye because the ballot label in the voter guide on the web site contained more language than the ballot label submitted by the local governing body. We asked for the ballot art work. The extra language was on the ballot too. The extra language was an additional title above the ballot label filed by the local governing body. An e-mail exchange followed, until the registrar caught the drift of where we were going. The registrar had already admitted that she added the language, which county counsel helped to compose. It was totally illegal. Whether by intention or unintended consequence, the extra language was favorable to proponents.

Once we knew that this cheat was being used in one county, we started consciously looking for it. It was happening in many counties. It was always the county registrar that added the language. In Orange County, it had been going on for so many years that those local governing bodies that knew what the registrar did, were submitting their own titles, over-and-above the 75-word limit, so that the registrar didn't have to create the language himself. We discovered that in the process of preparing an election contest against two November 2018 measures by the same local governing body.

One significant point about this cheat is that it falls outside of the mandatory public examination period for filing documents required by Elections Code sections 91xx, 92xx, 93xx, and 94xx. The only time the cheat can be found is by a request to the registrar for the ballot artwork, which is only available just before the ballots are printed. That is too late for the public to have it corrected. The registrars are well aware of this, yet continue to cheat on behalf of their local-governing-body customers.

Word Count and Section 9

Did you know that the Elections Code limits the number of words in ballot label for every measure, from the most complicated statewide proposition to most simple local ordinance to 75 words?

What is a word, you might ask? In every provision of the Elections Code where a word count limits the number of words allowed, Elections Code section 9, applies. Section 9 describes precisely how to count words. The local governing bodies or their advisors know the rules. They've found ways to cheat, either by intent or by luck or by knowledge of what a registrar lets them get away with.

Besides ballot labels, there are other things that are printed in the voter guide that are subject to word limits. If you submit an argument or a rebuttal to a measure, your argument is limited to 300 words and your rebuttal is limited to 250 words. If you've ever submitted an argument in person, the clerk takes your argument and goes off into another room in the office and sits down and counts the words. Hopefully, they are following the law. If the clerk's count is below the limit, your argument is accepted, usually. If the clerk's count exceeds the limit, you are asked to edit the argument until it satisfies the limit. (You're reading this page only because someone took the time, in the sometimes very short window of opportunity, to do just this.)

So what's the problem? Mostly it's symbols being treated as punctuation. You know punctuation, right? You learned it in basic grammar. Punctuation is the set of symbols that we use to break apart sentences, clauses, phrases, and other parts of speech into understandable chunks. If I were to suggest that the punctuation symbols are limited to the following set of symbols -- sentence enders {. ? !}, separators {, ; : () [] -}, and joiners {- ' "} -- you would be likely to agree. What about all the other symbols on the modern keyboard? {~@#$%^&*_-+=|/} Are they also punctuation? You might also agree that punctuation is silent when you read written materials. The other symbols are usually read as words. Some of these symbols have different contexts. In an arithmetic context, +(plus), *(times), -(minus or negative), /(divided by), and =(equals) are read as words. These symbols have meaning, just as words have meaning.

One symbol often miscounted in ballot labels is the dash {-}, or hyphen. It has several contexts -- as a hyphen joining two separate words, as a break in a word at the end of a printed line, minus sign, negative sign, or as the word "to" or "through" when joining numbers in a range. Under section 9, it should be counted or not counted as a word in the context it is used. Under the rules, one-half (a hyphenated word defined in a dictionary) is one word, voter-approved (not found in a dictionary, but joined with a hyphen to form an adjective) is two words, and 3%-10% (joining two numbers in a range) is at least three words, but should be 5, if you count each % as a word substitute for percent.

The other symbol that the corrupt local government officials and their school bonds cartel conspirators abuse profusely is the slash (/). There is one English word defined in the dictionary that uses the slash -- and/or. In practice, when the slash is used in ballot labels it is to separate words with the same meaning as and/or. You can see its use in that manner in statewide Proposition 26 on the November 2022 ballot. Proposition 26 has a word count of 71, so it is under the limit whether one counts "/" as a word or doesn't count it at all. Here's the context: "to operate online/ mobile sports wagering." If you removed the "/" or read the phrase without saying slash, you'd have "to operate online mobile sports wagering," which doesn't convey the same meaning. In ballot labels, the slash is used to avoid using the word "and/or" or "and" or "or." It also adds a significant degree of vagueness because it's ambiguous as to what it actually substitutes for.

The slash has other meanings, in context, when used in ballot labels. For example, "$30/$100,000." Clearly in that context, the slash represents the word "per." It should be counted as three words, not two or one. Removing it in that context would destroy the meaning.

The word "and/or" has not appeared in any ballot label since 1996 (ballot history at the California Election Data Archive). It follows that all uses of slash in ballot labels are as a word substitute, much like substituting "&" for "and." Local governing bodies are taking advantage of registrars who either don't know how to count words or don't even care. There are plenty of cases of the "don't even care" group as well. Over the last four statewide elections, 16 ballot labels have exceeded 100 words (not due to symbol counts) in El Dorado (1), Plumas (1), Riverside (1), San Diego (1), San Francisco (6), Shasta (1), Trinity (2), and Ventura (3). An additional, 346 ballot labels are in the 76 to 100 word range. The abuse is rampant. The only reason to approach the 75-word limit is to add arguments to vote yes on measures.

Of course, the word count issue only comes into play when the ballot label approaches the 75-word limit. Which kinds of measures do you suspect the word count approaches the limit? Almost universally, it is local tax measures. The reason is that the ballot label is not simply stating the purpose of the measure, it's providing arguments to vote in favor of the measure.

For the purpose of this discussion, lies are outright falsehoods, the omission of critical relevant information, the misrepresentation of relevant law, or the manipulation of the wording of relevant law.

The courts have held that a measure has several components -- the enabling statutes, the resolution, the full text of the measure (usually an exhibit attached to the resolution), and voter approval. The ballot label is sometimes in the body of the resolution and sometimes an exhibit. In school bond measures, because it contains such favorable arguments, some cartel law firms reproduce it in the full text, where it just adds confusion and contradiction.

There can be lies in the resolution, in the full text, and in the ballot label of local measures. There are many ways that lies appear.

The amount of lying is inversely proportional to the laxity of the relevant constitutional and statutory enabling provisions. For instance, there is very little room for lies in local transactions and use tax (sales tax) measures because the statutory requirements of how a sales tax is enacted are numerous and detailed. Only cities and counties can enact sales taxes. At the very other end of the spectrum are newly invented taxes, taxes that are created by the imagination of the local governing body. Invented taxes typically involve an effort by government to change people's behavior. In the past, they were called sin taxes. Governments enjoy playing God, so they create new sins all the time, so that they can tax them. Thankfully, perhaps, only cities and counties can invent new taxes. The newest sins involve cannabis, single-use plastics, trash separation, vacant housing, and water usage. Some of these have not yet reached the level where the cities and counties have been forced to get voter approval because they call them fees or penalties, but that time is coming.

Special districts, which include school and college districts, are, generally limited to taxes on property -- bonds and parcel taxes. But the specificity, or lack thereof, of the enabling statutes can either limit or expand the potential for lies.

Lies in the Resolution

Special

Lies in the Full Text

The most common lie in the full text of any local measure is the lie there is a provision for oversight. There is only one tax with enabling statute that standardizes and describes oversight. That's a Proposition 39 school bonds measure. All the other oversight provisions in the full text are custom-made attempts to hoodwink the voters.

Lies in the Ballot Label

While it has never been legal to lie in the ballot label, section 13119(c) expressly provides that the ballot label "shall be a true and impartial synopsis of the purpose of the proposed measure."

Term Limit Cheating

You might think that term limit cheating doesn't happen or that term limits are always good. Think again.

As will all measures submitted to the voters, the legislature has enacted procedures for the implementation and modification of term limits on local governing bodies. As a general rule, imposing term limits must be only prospective. That means that a measure imposing term limits can't be an ex post facto law (like Los Angeles County's Measure A (November 2022)). A term limit measure can only affect the current term or future terms. The courts have also weighed in on the term limit issue, so the rules go beyond the statutory enactments.

The most common cheating involves extending term limits. Think about it. Do you know the term limit rules for each of your county, city, school and college districts, and special districts? We can confidently assume that, except for the elected officials and government employees, no voters can answer that question. Therein lies the opportunity to cheat.

The cheating usually occurs expressly on the ballot label. While some term limit schemes are enacted as ordinances, others may be wholly encapsulated in the ballot label.

Term limits can, even though prospective, also be made very complicated. The simpler ones just involve the number of terms, usually two or three four-year terms. However, sometimes a break in service or a change in office or a change in district can restart a term limit calculation.

Elections Code 13119 mandates that "the nature" of the measure be specified. If there are no existing term limits in place, that's pretty straight forward. If, however, term limits already exist, then the nature of the measure will always be to shorten the limits, lengthen the limits, or change the rules for the calculation. If that nature is not described in the ballot label, it's because the local governing body knows that voters don't know that term limits exist and they will use that knowledge to hoodwink the voters into improving the term limits from the point of view of the elected officials.

These deceptively-worded, term-limits ballot labels appear on the ballot somewhere in the state in just about every election. [GIVE EXAMPLES]

The corrupt elected officials who place these measures on the ballot are the primary culprits. But either the city attorney or county counsel are required to understand the measure and provide an impartial analysis. Even if the impartial analysis describes the real nature of the measure, if that nature is not in the ballot label, it's still cheating. If the city attorney or county counsel see this and doesn't raise the issue with the registrar of voters, he's a culprit too. The registrar of voters has a ministerial duty to ensure that the ballot label complies with the relevant statutes. The registrar can reject ballot labels that do not comply. The board of supervisors, although somewhat removed from the cheating, have a ministerial duty to ensure that all elections that they agree to consolidate comply with the law as well.

Argument Deadlines

For every local measure, proponents and opponents can submit arguments to be published in the local voter guide for the jurisdiction to which a local measure applies.

Back in the old days, before the legislature wrote laws to force special districts, and school and college districts into even year elections, there were, and still are, statutes for how to run the uniform district elections (Part 4 of Division 10 of the Elections Code) in November of every odd-numbered year. Cities could hold an election on the uniform district election date, but often selected another available election date between March and May in odd-numbered years.

The legislature's success at forcing the move to the primary or general election has resulted in hugely overcrowded ballots, especially in the general election, like the one coming up in November 8, 2022. As an intended consequence, local, down-ballot candidates have been drowned out in all media by federal and state candidates, which in turn has driven up the costs of campaigns for all media. The law of supply and demand is universal.

Cities were the wild card. Cities had special rules that enabled them to run their own elections. There used to be businesses that sold their services to cities running their own elections. Those businesses folded because they couldn't compete with consolidated elections run by the registrar of voters.

Some of those special rules are found in Chapter 3 of Measures Submitted to the Voters. The one related to this cheating opportunity is Elections Code 9286.

Basically, when a city ran its own elections and placed a local measure on the ballot, the time period after which arguments could no longer be submitted were set in stone -- 14 days after the city's governing body called the election. Even when cities ran their own elections, this authority resulted in much mischief. A city could call its election for elective offices at any time, even many months before the election day. A local measure election could be called at any time as well. The deadline for filing arguments could thus be manipulated. As one city did in 2020, it called a local measure election in February for an election day in November. Unless you were really attentive to every city governing body meeting, by the time you learned about the measure, the deadline for filing arguments was long past.

With a trend toward consolidating city elections with county elections, either the uniform district election or the primary election or the general election, the legislature recognized this as an unfair practice. It amended section 9286 to add a subsection (b) that took away this power. When the city ran its own elections, the city clerk was the elections officer who conducted the election. When the city chose to consolidate an election with a county election, it also made registrar of voters the elections officer for that election.

The cheating aspect of the decision to consolidate an election directly relates to Elections Code 10403. At the point in time that the city passes the resolution (which is always effective immediately upon adoption) that requests consolidation, the city clerk's ministerial duties as elections officer end and the registrar of voters' ministerial duties begin.

Despite this, many county registrars, in counties big and small, permit the city clerk to use its own procedures on notice and filing deadlines for local measures. Our reading of these statutes is reinforced by the facts that (1) there is no procedure anywhere in the Elections Code that authorizes or directs a city clerk to submit arguments or rebuttals to the county registrar, and (2) some counties take over the ministerial duties of the city clerk, in fact.

We have not compiled a complete list of which county registrars follow the law and which don't. Fresno and Tulare are examples of registrars that follow the law with respect to publishing election notices and setting argument and rebuttal deadlines. Alameda, Los Angeles, Orange, Sacramento, and San Bernardino are examples of county registrars that ignore the law. In the case of Los Angeles, the county registrar brazenly flouts the law, claiming that the city clerk is a co-equal elections official with the county registrar for consolidated elections.

Thus, the voters

Cheating by Omission on Bond Measures

In addition to procedures laid out in Measures Submitted to the Voters and Ballots, Sample Ballots, and Voter Pamphlets, school and college districts have additional rules set out in the Part 10 of Title 1 of the Education Code (School Bonds).

Unless you were independently aware of these extra procedures, you would have a hard time finding out about them.

There are two statutes that specifically deal with the ballot label for school bond measures. These are Education Code sections 15122 and 15272. Section 15122 applies to all school bond measures. Section 15272 applies to Proposition 39 school bond measures.

Much like section 13119(b) discussed earlier, these could be classified as disclosure requirements. The purpose of disclosure, just like disclosure of the annual percent rate (APR) on any loan, is to provide relevant, factual information that is important to making a knowledgeable decision.

Neither of the two recent civil grand jury reports addressed these cheats. That's likely due the lack of knowledge of the complainants and/or the members of the civil grand jury themselves.

15122. The words to appear upon the ballots shall be "Bonds—Yes" and "Bonds—No," or words of similar import. A brief statement of the proposition, setting forth the amount of the bonds to be voted upon, the maximum rate of interest, and the purposes for which the proceeds of the sale of the bonds are to be used, shall be printed upon the ballot. No defect in the statement other than in the statement of the amount of the bonds to be authorized shall invalidate the bonds election. [Emphasis added.]

There are five disclosures required to be printed on the ballot by section 15122 -- "Bonds-Yes and "Bonds-No," "brief statement," "amount of the bonds," "maximum rate of interest," and "purposes for ... the proceeds." The first one is not part of the ballot label, the other four are.

The "maximum rate of interest" is the key disclosure that the school bonds cartel wants to ignore. It's like garlic to a vampire. You know, a creature that suck your life blood. There are only two instances in the history of school bonds measures since Proposition 13 (1978) in which a numerical value for the maximum interest has appeared on a ballot in California. Guess what, both of those measures failed.

There are statutory provisions that set the maximum interest rate for any bond issuance in California. Government Code section 53531 sets the maximum interest rate at 12% for bonds issued under the provisions of the Government Code. Education Code section 15143 sets the maximum interest rate at 8% for bonds issued under the provisions of the Education Code. Unless the measure were to restrict bond issuance to the Education Code, which no school bond measures do (for reasons outside the scope of this discussion), the value to print on the ballot is 12%, unless the measure itself limits sets a lower maximum interest rate, which no school bond measures do.

Over time, there have been several variations of the language ostensibly used to satisfy the interest rate disclosure requirement. It's taken a few years, but the school bonds cartel lawyers have finally narrowed it down to only one phrase -- "at legal rates."

15272. In addition to the ballot requirements of Section 15122 and the ballot provisions of this code applicable to governing board member elections, for bond measures pursuant to this chapter, the ballot shall also be printed with a statement that the board will appoint a citizens' oversight committee and conduct annual independent audits to assure that funds are spent only on school and classroom improvements and for no other purposes. [Emphasis added.]

Creating Fake Campaign Committees

This is one of the most egregious types of cheating there is. Here's how it works.

The district hires a marketing firm that specializes in winning local measure elections. The name of that firm might have initials, like initials. Then again, it might have the names of partners or the firm's founder in the firm name.

The district pays the firm with public money for work designed to set the stage for a successful measure campaign.

The firm produces purportedly pre-measure materials. In reality, the campaign has already begun. The firm wouldn't be hired if the local governing body wasn't planning to call an election for a local bond or parcel tax measure.

The district gives the firm a list of prospects from which to solicit contributions. The prospects may be the owners or executives of businesses that have done business with the district in the past. Maybe the prospects have bid on work in the past, maybe not. This is not going to be a cold call where the salesman has to get through a gatekeeper. These people are the decision makers.

The firm sets a target for how much money it needs to produce a successful local measure campaign. When the firm gets enough commitments from the prospects, it sets a target date, more than likely after the FPPC's semi-annual reporting period, but before the first campaign finance filing deadline for the election. In this way, it can operate in cloaked mode.

All of a sudden, on or shortly after the target date, contributions magically start rolling in. We're not talking about $100 here or there. We're taking about many hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the needs the firm has determined. The sky's the limit for contributions to local measure campaigns.

As soon as that big money hits, a campaign committee has qualified under FPPC regulations. The committee is set up with a stooge or several stooges as principal officers. The stooges are local people who have agreed to participate to help the district. They are not told they are participating in a criminal fraud.

The money flows into the campaign committee's bank account and the treasurer starts issuing expenditure checks to the firm or its designees so that the firm can start getting paid for the work and materials that it is providing.

The stooges make no decisions. They may not even know what's going on, except when they start seeing the campaign materials that the firm is producing.

The campaign signs are delivered, the campaign web site goes live, the mailers are printed and mailed.

If there are any opponents, they are struggling because they are not campaign professionals. They have day jobs to pay the taxes that the district is about to force them to pay. They may get discouraged when they see the results of the firm's campaign.

The stooges? They cheer on how well the campaign is going. They don't have to worry about anything. When tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars are flowing into the campaign account, does anyone believe that the stooges are given the authority to direct any part of this professionally run campaign?

The campaign treasurer, often a professional campaign finance treasurer firm, but sometimes a well-meaning local accounting professional, files the reports. Everything is going off without a hitch. After all, the pros are running things.

Another term for this fraud is money laundering. The firm launders the money through the campaign account to pay itself and its cronies. Once in a while a local person or organization does something to help in a small, mostly irrelevant way. Sometimes district staff contribute token amounts (out of their huge salaries) to the campaign to demonstrate that they're all in this together. Sometimes private individuals contribute small amounts through the professionally-built, cookie-cutter campaign web site.

The campaign committee has violated the law. And it's not just the slap-on-the-wrist kind of violation. It's fraud. It's criminal. It's the kind of violation that the FPPC could refer to the local district attorney for criminal prosecution. It's an f'ing big deal, as someone famous once said.

If you see a firm name or one with initials, as described earlier, on the printed postage indicia in the upper right-hand corner or anywhere else on the address side of that campaign mailer in your mailbox, now you know how it got there.

If you want to know how to gather the evidence for a successful FPPC complaint and possibly criminal prosecution, you'll need to be a vetted member of this web site. We don't reveal all the strategies and tactics publicly. That's not The Art of War.

Fake Campaign Committees: Community College District Variant

It often works a little differently for community college districts. This variant typically substitutes the district itself for the firm for the task of raising campaign contributions. The stooges on the campaign committee are still only for show. Even if the stooges make suggestions for the campaign, they will only be of a cosmetic nature -- nothing of substance. The firm is still in total control of the campaign.

The difference between school districts and community college districts is that every community college district has several sources of funds that are uniquely available to hit up for contributions. The three major sources are all non-profits: the foundation, the student governing body, and the auxiliary organization.

Because the district itself is the fiduciary for the latter two sources and it heavily influences the foundation through interlocking directors, funds from these sources are easily tapped. The foundation members and directors are also typically a whose-who of all the rent-seeking businesses and organizations that want the district's business. So besides the foundation itself, its membership list and contact list is available to the district to milk for cash.

In a slightly different variant of this variant, the district launders its own money through the foundation. We have the actual, public meeting minutes of how this worked in one college district. It's brazen and illegal. Seriously, have you ever reviewed the minutes or financial reporting of your community college district foundation? Q.E.D.

The arcana involved in special districts is mind-numbing. Besides the procedures connected with local measures found in the Elections Code, there are dozens of enabling statutes found in different parts of the Government Code.

For the purposes of this discussion, an enabling statute is a statute that implements a constitutional provision. The concept is that even though the constitution may allow governing bodies to do certain things, the courts have held that the constitution cannot be the source of the authority to take an action. The courts have held that the legislature most provide procedures that describe the authority granted.

The primary impetus for all this regulation of local measures was the tax limitations placed on all local governing bodies by Proposition 13 (1978) and its progeny, especially Proposition 218 (1994).

Special districts, like school and college districts, are prohibited from imposing general-purpose taxes. The three most common general-purpose taxes are the transactions and use tax (sales tax), the transient occupancy tax (hotel tax), and the business franchise tax. There is no limit to the types of general-purpose taxes except the imagination of the local governing body.

As a result, special districts are limited to the imposition of parcel taxes on real property. Just about every type of special district is governed by one or more statutes granting authority to the special district to impose the tax.

There are two primary ways that special districts cheat