Why a Multi-Ideological and Bipartisan Ballot Initiative Effort in California is Giving me Some Hope in the New Year
When Americans of different races, creeds, sexual orientations, income levels, political parties, and ideologies come together in common cause: Repealing Proposition 19 (2020)
I wanted to wish everyone a very happy and healthy 2024. I am hopeful 2024 will shine brighter than 2023. I wanted to thank all of my subscribers for your loyal readership and critical feedback. Off-Script reached many unanticipated milestones in 2023 and I am excited for what 2024 has the potential to bring.1
If this new year’s greeting feels somewhat late, it’s because if you’re like me, you probably had your email inboxes inundated with New Year’s emails from every politician, political and non-profit organization, Substack you subscribe to, and store you’ve ever purchased from. My goal is to not further junk up your inbox.
There is much to be anxious about in the new year as we look at the legal and political landscape in the United States. Most are dreading the 2024 general election, which will likely be a rematch between Donald Trump, currently facing 93 felony indictments, and Joe Biden, whose popularity has suffered due to the fall of Afghanistan and high inflation.
Politics today can be exceptionally depressing. When it comes to controversial issues, it seems like many are speaking past each other or living in their own realities.
There’s this state of affairs where people seem to take positions on issues based solely in response to what someone on an opposing political side has said. It’d be easy to label this as just a Republican or conservative phenomenon. But in truth, both sides are practicing this in full.
It sometimes feels like politics is no longer politics but instead Oppositional Defiance Disorder, with people egged on by political commentators, left, right, and center.
That said, I don’t feel hopeless. Of late, I have been buoyed in the new year by the multi-ideological and bipartisan effort in California to repeal Proposition 19 (2020) through a citizen’s initiative.
If you’re wondering what Proposition 19 was, a brief explanation.
In California, under Proposition 13, your property tax rate is based on an assessed value of what you actually purchased your property for and is not re-assessed. Thus, your property value may rise dramatically in value over the years that you own it. But your property taxes will not be based upon what the new value of your home is.
Proposition 13 has helped keep millions of Californians in their homes, enabled stable retirements for seniors, and also been a very useful tool in ameliorating the ill side effects of gentrification. Because of Proposition 13, California has the highest levels of black and brown equity in the country and our newly built exurbs are the most diverse.
When neighborhoods begin to gentrify, the homeowners in those neighborhoods are able to benefit from their successful investment. People will not be driven out of their communities because of rising property taxes. And homeowners can retain their most valuable asset until it makes sense to sell it.
There are many, especially outside California, who find this system strange. But if you think about it, it’s rather fair.
Most taxes apply to actual recognized dollar amounts.
An income tax applies to income one has actually earned, not what a government bureaucrat imagines it could be. This would be true if we had a universal flat tax on income as some conservatives want or implemented Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal for a 70% tax on all income above ten million a year.
A capital gains tax applies to the net profit earned, not what a government bureaucrat thinks your profit should have been if you had run your business the way that they think you should have.
A sales tax applies to what you have actually spent to purchase products, not what a government bureaucrat thinks the products should have cost, what you could have paid, or how what you should have bought.
A gas tax is imposed for how many gallons of fuel you purchase, not how much a government bureaucrat thinks you should have purchased in gas.
In most places, property taxes are determined by the government deciding what the value of your house is. But that value might be different from what you can actually get on the market.
In California, the property tax base value is determined on what you have actually spent to purchase your property. This too is one way in which Proposition 13 has protected black and brown equity, where even though long illegal, there are still sometimes racially discriminatory home appraisals illegally and wrongfully devaluing homes owned by non-whites.
Now, when real property is transferred in California, there is still a reassessment in value. However, there are some key exclusions. For example, when a person dies and their property is transferred to their spouse, there’s no reassessment. For 35 years, when the principal residence passed from parents to children (or grandchildren when their parents were deceased), there was no property value reassessment.
It allowed Californians, at all income levels, to pass the family home to their children without risk of their children losing it. That’s because if property values have risen dramatically, which is fairly common in California, one could inherit a home only to receive a massive property tax increase making it impossible to keep the home.
In 2020, a repeal of the parent-child transfer exclusion was included in the fine print of a larger ballot initiative, Proposition 19, that otherwise extended Proposition 13 protections. This repeal was heavily supported by the California Realtor’s Association, which saw repealing the parent-child transfer exclusion as a great way to increase potential home sales.
By including it in a larger measure that extended Proposition 13 protections, Proposition 19 was advertised to voters as a property tax protection expansion. Proposition 19 passed narrowly statewide in the 2020 November general election and went into effect in February 2021.
The effects have been quite harmful.
Californians who inherit a family home find themselves paying what is in effect an estate tax. Even though California has no state estate tax and even though most of these Californians do not come anywhere close to meeting the current federal estate tax threshold, which is over $13,600,000 for individuals and over $27,000,000 million for couples.
Renters in family owned and occupied multi-family properties are faced with massive rent increases or, worse, withdrawal of their unit from the rental market upon the death of the owner of the property. Because those who inherit the property must raise rent just to break even with the new property taxes.
Longtime residents of gentrifying communities who hoped to leave their kids the family home are no longer able to do so because of the impending new property tax rates.
Disabled people whose parents had left them a multi-unit property as both a home and means of financial support are being forced out of their homes by the property tax increases, losing not only their home but their primary source of income.
People who have just lost their parents who are having to sort out their state of affairs are facing a massive new tax that they cannot afford to pay.
Decades of careful estate planning have been up-ended by the change in law.
There is now an effort underway to restore the parent-child transfer exclusion through the citizen’s initiative process.
https://reinstate58.hjta.org/
Nearly a million valid signatures from registered California are required to place a repeal of Proposition 19 on the ballot. They have to be gathered within a six (6) month period (the current deadline to submit a signature is January 16, 2024).
The petition is linked below. It can be downloaded, printed out on home or office computer on regular paper, filled out and signed, and mailed in:
https://reinstate58.hjta.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Official-Repeal-the-Death-Tax-Petition-plus-Instructions-and-Top-Funders-Sheet-January2024.pdf
The only requirement to sign it is that one must be a registered California voter.
Full disclosure. I support the repeal of Proposition 19. It’s a very bad law and as a volunteer, I have collected numerous signatures (as of New Year’s Day, I’ve now collected in the triple figures).
I have no idea whether this effort will be successful. But the process has left me feeling this sense of hope and political rejuvenation.
The other night, I began sorting through a stack of signature petition pages, getting ready to mail them in. As I looked through the stack, it struck me that the full panoply of American and Californian life was on display.
There are signatures to repeal Proposition 19 from:
Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, Peace and Freedom, and registered No Party Preference voters.
Strong conservatives, libertarians, moderates, centrists, liberals, and progressives.
Hispanics/Latinos, Whites, Jews, Armenians, Blacks, and Asian Americans.
Business leaders, white collar professionals (doctors, lawyers, bankers, accountants, architects, investors), blue collar professionals (plumbers, electricians, maintenance workers), store owners and restauranteurs, service workers, Gig Economy workers, and minimum wage workers.
Elderly, middle aged, and young people.
Devout Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Atheists.
Straight people and LGBT people.
Single, divorced, married, and widowed individuals.
Parents with children and people without children.
Renters and homeowners.
Multi-generation Californians and immigrants who are naturalized citizens.
The effort to repeal Proposition 19 is led by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, which is a traditionally very conservative and Republican leaning organization. But clearly, the appeal of this initiative stretches far beyond Republicans and conservatives, or even homeowners.
One signatory was an older gay man without kids who had once inherited the principal residence from a close friend considered a stranger under the law and faced a massive tax increase upon reassessment. Even though it would not benefit him, he signed out of his understanding of the harsh effect on others.
One signatory was a Bernie Sanders voting progressive, who noted that she found it regressive to impose an estate tax on those who would ordinarily not pay one and disliked how Proposition 19 had hurt black and brown equity.
Several signatories are homeowners in South LA, East LA, and the northeast San Fernando Valley who do not look at homeowners in the more affluent parts of LA and California with resentment as enemies or rivals. Instead, they view them as allies, people like them wanting to leave a family home behind for their kids and facing the prospect of being unable to do that because of a bad law.
An immigrant who is a lifelong renter signed because several of her family members now faced the loss of their homes. She didn’t think it was right.
These are just a few of the examples of people who are defying what political pundits might assume since these people are acting outside of their own immediate interests or are acting in a way that helps others potentially benefit more than they do.
Barring some completely unforeseen miracle circumstance, 2024 will be a rough year politically and it probably will test our democracy. And there will probably be even more polarization and demonization of entire groups of Americans.
However, this process makes me realize that as divided as the country seems, there are still times when Americans are capable of looking beyond our respective politics, our individual identities, our personal situations, and even our backgrounds to join together in common cause.
Americans can still think for ourselves and exercise independent judgment that is not dictated by political parties or by social media celebrities. Americans are also capable of empathy and understanding towards others and capable of looking at those who are different than them and yet finding commonality.
And in the new year, that gives me hope.
If you would like to join the bipartisan and multi-ideological effort to repeal Proposition 19, here again is the link to the petition:
https://reinstate58.hjta.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Official-Repeal-the-Death-Tax-Petition-plus-Instructions-and-Top-Funders-Sheet-January2024.pdf
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