Upcoming Events
Proposition 50: Unconstitutional or Not?
Discussion of Proposition 20 (2010) and court decisions surrounding redistricting. This will go beyond the hype by both sides and what you should be doing if you oppose Prop 50.
Schedule: 2025-09-20
- When:
- September 20, 2025 (Saturday) 09:00 PM (Pacific)
- How:
- See Proposition 50 Teleconference page.
Election-Related Petitions for 2026: Worthwhile or Not?
Discussion of voter-initiatives 25-0006 (Save Prop 13) and 25-0007 (Voter ID). The proponents are spinning propaganda. We'll look at what the initiatives actually accomplish. You might be surprised.
Schedule: 2025-09-21 2025-09-28
- When:
- September 21, 2025 (Sunday) 08:00 PM (Pacific)
- How:
- See Election-Related Initiatives page.
The purpose of this page is to bring together information about voter-initiatives, as opposed to government-initiatives, that are related to elections.
The initiative power and referendum power were reserved to the people of California by Proposition 7 (1911) ("Prop 7") by amending the constitution. Insofar as the statewide powers were concerned, the measure was self-executing. That means that all the rules for how it worked were written into the constitution. Those rules can only be changed by future constitutional amendments. Over time, there have been some amendments.
In addition, Prop 7 reserved those powers, without the rules, to the people of counties and cities. Prop 7 provided that the Legislature (or charter cities) should make the rules for those local powers. The Legislature complied and created those rules in 1912 in an enactment for counties and a separate enactment for cities. Later the Legislature extended those powers to special districts that are authorized to enact ordinances. There are very few of those.
While the powers exist for counties and cities, the rules are completely different. The Legislature created the rules and can change those rules as it determines. In 1912, the Legislature implemented the initiative and referendum powers for both the electors (people) and the governments. This is critical to understand. The governments were permitted to place initiatives on the ballot for voter approval, just like the electors could. The ability of the government to do that did not exist prior to that, except in the case of charter cities where statutes already provided for charter law.
Even though both initiative and referendum powers were provided, this page focuses on initiatives.
The proponents or purported (fake) proponents of statewide initiatives frame their initiatives to their best advantage. Talking points and promotional sales puffery abound. Whatever you see, hear, or read from proponents is 99.44% propaganda. Unless you actually read the language of the initiative AND understand how that language is used in the context of existing constitutional or statutory provisions, you will not be able to determine how far away or how close the propaganda is to the truth.
This page is dedicated to providing you with analyses that compare the propaganda to the actual language so that you can distinguish what is true and what is not. We have been heavily commenting on statewide voter-initiatives lately (2024 to 2025).
As we put some organization into this, temporarily, what you'll find is links to other commentary that we have already written.
The page is organized into statewide voter-initiatives and county or city voter-initiatives. It will not include government-initiatives.
Active initiatives are those that are in the process of being placed on the ballot or have already qualified to be on the ballot at a future statewide general election.
Version 1 contains a provision to vitiate previous county or city tax measure elections for special taxes that don't comply with the provisions. Some of those measures date back to 2018.
Amended: 2025-06-16, 25-0004A1 (Amendment #1)
2025-07-17: This is the only one of the now three versions that appears on the proponent's page.
Version 2 does not vitiate the elections that Version 1 would vitiate.
Amended: 2025-06-16, 25-0005A1 (Amendment #1)
2025-07-17: This version does not appear on the proponent's page. Voters would be totally confused by the now confusing (Amendment #1) differences (or lack thereof) between the three versions.
Version 3 makes this whole thing a SNAFU.
2025-07-17: This version does not appear on the proponent's page. Voters would be totally confused by the differences (or lack thereof) between the three versions.
We checked the Attorney General's web site after business hours on July 16, 2025. Yes, he filed it. It's basically a rehash of the two previous attempts. What stuck out was that two sitting legislators (DeMaio and Strickland) don't know the law on non-citizen voting in California. They should be embarrassed, especially Strickland who dealt with that issue as mayor of Huntington Beach in 2024.
Fake initiatives are those that are not in the process of qualifying. In order to be classified as Fake, the initiative text must be a secret. In other words, all the public knows about them is the proponent's propaganda. They have not been filed. They are completely imaginary, except in the eyes of the purported proponent who may be recruiting volunteers and donors to back the scheme.
Inactive initiatives are those that have been withdrawn by the proponent, have failed to qualify, or have been removed by court order.
In 1912 in both its enactments for counties and for cities, the Legislature limited the language that could be printed on the ballot ("ballot label") to this question: "Shall the ordinance (stating the nature thereof) be adopted?". Today, the law on ballot labels has changed slightly to: "Shall the measure (stating the nature thereof) be adopted?". Because ALL local governments violate that law (Elections Code 13119(a)), a voter cannot easily determine by the ballot label whether a measure is a special tax (two-thirds super-majority to pass) or a general tax (simple majority to pass) because the ballot lists many purposes designed to influence voters to cast a "yes" vote. This practice goes on, universally, because the voters take no action to stop it.
Consequently, ALL local measure ballot labels, whether government-initiatives or voter-initiatives violate, not only penal provisions in the Elections Code, but also provisions in the Penal Code itself. Beyond those penal provisions, ALL local measure ballot labels violate both the California and United States constitutions "compelled speech" and "equal protection of the laws" provisions as held by the California Supreme Court in a line of opinions that includes Stanson v. Mott (1976) 17 Cal.3d 206.
The current (2025) controversy regarding AB-699 (2025) to amend Elections Code 13119 belies the fact the source of the controversy is another unintended consequence of the misguided efforts and the incompetence of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association ("HJTA") that made the first move to mess with the 1912 law with AB-809 (2015) and AB-195 (2017).
The bottom line is that it is criminal as well as unconstitutional for the government to takes sides in an election using public moneys (your taxes). The ballots with the government-favoring ballot labels are printed, circulated, and counted using public moneys.
The ballot labels provided in the 1912 enactments provide for no title, summary, or description of any kind for either a government-initiative or a voter-initiative. Any such title, summary, or description is unavoidably biased by the very act of choosing which words to include in a ballot label. The "nature" of a measure limits that unavoidable bias to what the essence of the measure is - impose a tax, authorize debt and impose a tax to pay the debt, create or amend a charter, or enact, amend, or repeal an ordinance. Those are the only things that a local measure can accomplish.
With respect to measures to impose a tax, we have only HJTA to thank for enabling local governments to steal, literally, trillions of dollars from local taxpayers subsequent to the passage of Proposition 13 (1978). Proposition 13 forced all local taxes to a vote by the people. Local governments, almost immediately, started weaponizing the ballot labels to favor a "yes" vote. In other words, they started taking sides in measure elections by printing arguments (reasons) in favor of the measures on the ballots. They even hire professionals, using public moneys, to test the favorability of the ballot label. They got away with it as HJTA sat on its laurels. They've continued to get away with it for almost 50 years because HJTA is still sitting, pompously, on its laurels.
These are county or city voter-initiatives for special taxes that passed with a majority vote instead of a two-thirds vote as required by Proposition 13 (1978). A special tax, according to the courts, is a tax imposed by an ordinance that limits the expenditure of tax revenues to specific, named purposes, as opposed to general government purposes.
| County | Letter | City/County | Tax Type | Pass Pct. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| November 6, 2018 (x of x passed under 2/3) | ||||
| Alameda | AA | City of Oakland | parcel tax | 62.5% |
| San Francisco | C | City of San Francisco | business license tax | 59.9% |
| Del Norte | C | County of Del Norte | transient occupancy tax | 54.6% |
| Fresno | P | City of Fresno | transactions and use tax | 52.2% |
| June 7, 2022 (x of x passed under 2/3) | ||||
| November 8, 2022 (7 of 14 passed under 2/3) | ||||
| Alameda | Y | City of Oakland | parcel tax | 62.5% |
| Contra Costa | L | Crockett Community Services District | parcel tax | 62.8% |
| Los Angeles | GS | City of Santa Monica | property transfer tax | 53.3% |
| Los Angeles | ULA | City of Los Angeles | property transfer tax | 57.3% |
| Mendocino | O | County of Mendocino | transactions and use tax | 60.8% |
| Sacramento | A | County of Sacramento | transactions and use tax | 55.3% |
| San Francisco | M | City of San Francisco | other tax | 54.5% |
| March 5, 2024 (2 of 3 passed under 2/3, 2 passed over 2/3) | ||||
| Calaveras | A | County of Calaveras | transactions and use tax | 57.2% |
| Sonoma | H | County of Sonoma | transactions and use tax | 61.7% |
| November 5, 2024 (9 of 17 passed under 2/3) | ||||
| Alameda | FF | City of Berkeley | parcel tax | 60.9% |
| Los Angeles | A | County of Los Angeles | transactions and use tax | 57.8% |
| Los Angeles | E | County of Los Angeles | parcel tax | 55.1% |
| Madera | T | County of Madera | transactions and use tax | 51.5% |
| Marin | P | City of San Rafael | parcel tax | 52.0% |
| San Francisco | L | City of San Francisco | business license tax | 56.2% |
| Santa Cruz | Q | County of Santa Cruz | parcel tax | 60.2% |
| Solano | F | City of Benicia | transactions and use tax | 61.8% |
| Sonoma | I | County of Sonoma | transactions and use tax | 62.8% |
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