"Here I Come to Save the Day!" Remember the theme song from that American animated anthropomorphic superhero mouse? If you're old enough, you probably watched the Mighty Mouse cartoon on your television.
In fact, he's no friend to tax payers either.
A week ago (May 12, 2025), Jon Coupal (alter-ego of Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association) filed two voter initiative measures with the Secretary of State.
Why two? Because Coupal doesn't really know what he's doing, so he's hedging his bet? The extra $2,000 filing fee is donor money. (A fool and his money ...) He's spending it to avoid embarrassment, like last time, when he, through his hired hand, Tom Hiltachk, flushed about $10 million of donor money down the toilet.
Coupal has changed his tune and title. It's now named "Save Proposition 13 Act of 2026 (Version 1)" ("SP13") and the embarrassment saving version -- "(Version 2)." How clever.
It's a far cry from the doomed "Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act," his ignominious previous attempt. The California Supreme Court saved the people from that disaster-in-the-making. You can read, for those of you who can comprehend more than a meme or a pithy sound-byte, all about that failure here: TPGAA: Taxpayer Protection or Poison Pill?
Coupal's not going to spend his own (HJTA's) money on a statewide initiative. It is, therefore, highly likely that there is a new campaign committee hanging around the Secretary of States' office that is just being formed or, more likely, has already raised a couple million dollars.
Also, note the Attorney General accepts comments on initiatives during the 30-day period after they are submitted. That means that you can add your two cents to these voter-initiatives until June 11, 2025. You can comment separately on Version 1 and Version 2. Each comment can also include an attachment.
This is critical. If you don't already know this, then where have you been for the past 50 years?
All the usual suspects (including those named in this article) have been whining about this for decades.
The Attorney General's web site adds to the confusion because it does not distinguish between "circulating" and "ballot" title and summary.
The Elections Code provides that when proponents submit a voter-initiative, the Attorney General is required to prepare a "circulating title and summary." (Section 9001.) This is the title and summary, which is much longer than what will appear on the ballot, that appears on the petitions.
After the Secretary of State has determined that the voter-initiative qualifies for the ballot, only then does the law provide that the Attorney General prepare a much shorter, "ballot title and summary." (Section 9050.)
By the way, there is not, and has never been, any provision anywhere in the Elections Code that authorizes a ballot title and summary for local measures. You may ask, then why do ballot titles and summaries appear on the ballot for every local measure for the last 45 years? Because the county registrars, in cahoots with the local government agencies who are their clients, simply ignore the law and the registrars' mandatory ministerial duty to reject measure materials that don't conform to every provision of law. But, really it's because the people (you) allow it. (See the notice about election contests in this article.)
Our question, for years, has been why have all the whiners consistently failed to fix this? As soon as that question is raised, the simple-minded whiners, including many policy wonks, talk about someone else writing each of the titles and summaries. The most common nominee for this is the Legislative Analyst's Office, who is hired by the Legislature.
There is a simpler solution, however. The real, underlying problem is that proponents must spend many millions of dollars to get to the point where a "ballot title and summary" is written. The "circulating title and summary" is typically not terribly controversial. If the proponents don't like it or they believe it is badly written, they can request a change, go to court, or drop the voter-initiative. If the "circulating title and summary" is amended, it restarts the clock for gathering signatures.
The options for proponents for an intentional badly written "ballot title and summary" are much more limited. The California Supreme Court has ruled that the Attorney General's "ballot title and summary" is to be deemed in conformance with the law and given deference. That makes going to court a sure loser because the proponents would have to overcome this huge shift in the burden of proof. If the law were changed to direct the Legislative Analyst Office to write the "ballot title and summary" it is almost inevitable that the same deference, or perhaps even more deference, be given to that language. This would undoubtedly also make the Legislative Analyst Office's new power the subject of lots of political strategies, since the LAO is under the control of the Legislature.
The simple solution is to change the law to require that both the "circulating title and summary" and the "ballot title and summary" be written at the same time. That would give the proponents the opportunity to change things after spending only $2,000, as opposed to millions of dollars.
If we were given the opportunity to amend the statutes, we would also change the law regarding the fee required to submit a voter-initiative and remove the prohibition on voter-initiatives being limited to appearing only on general election ballots, while the Legislature can place statewide measures on primary, general, and special election ballots. We contend that the limitation is unconstitutional and violates Proposition 7 (1911) as well as the First Amendment ("prohibition of speech") and the Fourteenth Amendment ("equal protection").
Well, after 27 years at the helm, Coupal finally understands that you have to start the voter initiative process early. Last time, he started so late that he missed the November 2022 ballot by about a month, and gave the opposition two years to mount their opposition. He's starting a full six months earlier than last time. Score one for him.
The Version 1 and Version 2 business is really of not much significance. Maybe he's actually going to try to put both on the ballot. Another strategy might be to force Attorney General Rob Bonta's office to write two different title and summaries. Then Coupal might have a choice between a terrible title and a merely-bad title. Mind-reading is hard, especially with him.
The difference between the two versions is a single paragraph. Version 1 has the paragraph. Version 2 doesn't. In total, it's 506 words, a far cry from TPGAA.
It's also about 90% less complex than TPGAA. That's because Coupal has abandoned his mythical 'loophole' search-and-destroy mission.
SP13 simply adds a section to the article that was originally created by Proposition 13 (1978).
There are five paragraphs -- a through e.
The first paragraph (a) is language that is usually found in a separate section that does not become part of the law. It's the longest at 117 words. Who knows how that superfluous language will be used by the opposition and the courts, ah, but we repeat ourselves.
The second paragraph (b) (81 words) is a re-grant of the power of local governments to impose certain kinds of taxes by a two-thirds vote. As is de rigueur for lawyers, it's a single sentence with a bunch of commas. (The first paragraph uses four sentences.) Commas are often the worst enemy of any law. Why couldn't Coupal just use short declarative statements?
The third paragraph (c) (107 words) is also a single sentence. It also has a bunch of commas and two "except" clauses. Basically, it restricts local governments (and their voters) to following the rules set out by Proposition 218 for ad valorem property taxes and by a Revenue and Taxation Code statute for non-ad valorem taxes and a whole list of "other taxes." Perhaps, it's one of those "loopholes." There was no direct corollary to this in TPGAA. So purportedly, this doesn't change anything as it exists today, except for the inclusion of an "electors" clause, modifying "local government." With all the commas in this single sentence, it would take a lot of parsing and digging to understand why this is needed, unless it is simply to prevent voter initiatives from avoiding a two-thirds majority passage requirement. That was also in TPGAA, but not in similar language. As we addressed in our TPGAA article, however, there is no "loophole." The result in the Upland cannabis case and several other appellate court decisions that ultimately allowed a majority vote on local voter initiatives was purely a case of lazy lawyers arguing the wrong law.
Just as an aside, and to point out how sloppily SP13 was written, both the second and the third paragraph have an "including" clause modifying "local government." In the third paragraph, it reads "including the electors of a local government exercising the initiative power." In the second paragraph "the" is omitted from the clause. Does it make a difference? No. It's just sloppy, and it's not the only instance of sloppiness.
The fourth paragraph (d) (111 words, 2 sentences.) is the difference between Version 1 and Version 2. The gist of the paragraph is that it expires any voter-approved tax that didn't comply with the second or third paragraph. These would all be taxes that were voter initiatives that passed with a majority in cases where they would have required a two-thirds vote if they were city or county initiatives. The expiration is set to sometime after November 7, 2028.
Several of those kinds of taxes passed on November 5, 2024. Every one of those taxes, like the $100+ billion dollar permanent-homeless-industry tax (Los Angeles County, Measure A), along with hundreds of others that passed, printed the arguments in favor of the measure on the ballot. Each of those taxes violated the constitution and were offenses against the elective franchise. There is still time to challenge them in an Election Contest over the next two weeks (approximately June 5th). Text 909-378-5401 with your name, e-mail address, and county to learn how to file. Please, only if you intend to act.
Basically, the fourth paragraph repeals all local taxes that Coupal has argued for almost a decade resulted from a court-created "loophole." Supposedly, after SP13 passes, there would be no more of those kinds of taxes. (Dream on!)
This paragraph, however, is one of the failures of SP13. Does Coupal think that the cities and counties where a couple dozen of these taxes have already been approved by voters or ones that might be approved in 2025 or 2026 will just magically stop. Coupal has not provided any implementing statutes to make any official enforce this. Consequently, what happens when the expiration doesn't happen? Lawsuits. Won't that be just dandy? And these lawsuits would not even be ripe until after the deadline has passed. Will fighting a lawsuit for a couple years with your taxes benefit the city or county more than the cost of the lawsuit using your money? Indubitably. And that's if the cities and county were to lose after an appeal. Ground control to Major Jon! (Apologies to David Bowie.)
The fifth paragraph (e) refers to definitions (92 words, 5 sentences). This is fuzzy and has one glaring mistake. It's fuzzy because some definitions refer to an already existing provision (Proposition 218 (1996)) along with one new definition. The definitions, however, aren't scoped. The mistake is the use of the self-referential "this section." Usually, when such a reference is made in a subsection of a provision, it is limited to just that subsection. There are many ways to clarify the scope of definitions.
In this case, however, "this section" is used three times in the subparagraph, but not for the scope of the definitions. It is used in connection with severability. A severability provision is usually not written into the constitution. Almost always, it appears in a "section" of the initiative. In other words, this initiative, should have at least three sections. One would be the purpose, which is paragraph (a), one would be the actually language being added to the constitution, and one would be the interpretation and severability section, the last three sentences of paragraph (e).
"This section" is also used twice in the fourth paragraph.
Doesn't Coupal understand this? Who knows?
The TPGAA consisted of long, never-ending sentences with lots of internal punctuation. It also consisted of lots of oblique external references. Coupal did not publish anything that described to regular people what the TPGAA did or how it did it. Coupal appears to have used the same philosophy here. Just sound-bytes.
Back in 2023, the Legislature implemented its plan C to stop TPGAA. It was called ACA-13. At that time, it was too late for Coupal to change TPGAA and still make the November 2024 ballot deadline. Also, the governor and the Legislature had filed suit (Plan B) against TPGAA at the supreme court to remove it from the ballot.
ACA-13 basically says that if a voter initiative raises the threshold for passage of tax measures, the voter initiative itself must pass by the same increased threshold. In other words, since TPGAA was increasing the passage threshold for some voter initiatives to two-thirds, TPGAA would also have to pass by two-thirds. That's a tall order.
Obviously, with TPGAA being removed from the ballot, the Legislature didn't need to implement Plan C. It's still qualified for 2026 however. It could be placed on either the primary or general election ballot with a simple request to the Secretary of State.
So, the burning question is does SP13 (either version), raise the passage threshold for certain voter initiatives. Arguably, it does. The question that would be argued about in the lawsuit that is sure to occur, should either version of SP13 pass is whether the court opinion (the Upland case) is equivalent to written law.
Until we see the arguments, we really can't speculate. The Legislature certainly thinks so.
The headwinds against any actual tax payer benefiting from SP13 are extremely strong. All because Coupal and his allies let the opposition argue the wrong law and then went along with that argument. It's a conundrum for sure.
As someone famous once said, "You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created." Coupal and his predecessors have been on the same level for 45 years. None of the "fixes" have worked. The purported "loopholes" were, as we explain in the article linked at the top, all the result of lazy lawyers thinking they know it all. Hubris.
Like most constitutional amendments, it is not self-implementing. In plain language that means that it does not command any official to do anything and it does not prohibit any official from doing anything. It leaves out the details that would normally be made in the Elections Code or other codes.
Those details are then left to the Legislature. That's assuming the Legislature would ever voluntarily want to implement anything and that the implementation supported rather than opposed the language in SP13.
Proposition 13 (1978) was like that. It was not self-implementing. In that case, the Legislature was forced to implement it with dozens of statutes across several codes. It had to do that in order for local officials to put a tax on the ballot for voter approval. Had it not implemented it, no local government, except perhaps charter cities or charter counties could have put a tax on the ballot.
Proposition 218 (1996) was also not self-implementing. However, in that case, since the initiative attempted to further restrict local governments, the Legislature did nothing. Even though there were some very detailed sections in Proposition 218, any alleged violation required someone to go to court.
That's how it will be with SP13, too.
The Legislature is not going to implement any of the language. So what the people will be left with is 506 new words in the constitution that they can only enforce if they go to court.
And remember, SP13 is only about local tax or pseudo-tax measures.
While there will likely be strong opposition, ultimately the affected cities and counties and districts won't really be damaged by its passage. Enforcement will be expensive for local taxpayers and take years in court with only court opinions as the result, even if they are favorable. Understand that the courts cannot and will not write implementing statutes.
The cities and counties and districts will be able to continue to play the card that's been up their sleeve since 1978. They can still cheat by printing their arguments in favor on the ballot using public moneys. That's despite that card being unconstitutional with both criminal and civil liability.
Sure it could be fixed. But that would require Coupal to eat crow, so to speak. That's not likely to happen in his world.
We have written an entire series of implementing statutes for the underlying issue.
Implementing statutes are, in our opinion, more powerful than constitutional amendments. The thousands of statutes that comprise the Political Reform Act (Proposition 9 (1974)) were passed by voters without any change to the constitution. They have held up almost completely intact for over 50 years. The voters have even amended some of the statutes over that time. It can be done, but it requires real work. Most people avoid real work, especially those who can get others to pay for their boondoggles.
What would a couple of new statewide initiatives be without Carl DeMaio using them to enrich his posse?
That's right. DeMaio just can't resist an opportunity for mo' money, mo' money, mo' money.
Subscribers to his never-ending-fundraising-list got the second of two pitches today (May 20, 2025).
Our comments are in-line in braces.
RE: Important - Tax Filing (please respond)
Sounds like something you might expect from the IRS or the California FTB, doesn't it?
Now that the California Taxpayer Protection Initiative {no such initiative exists} has officially been filed, can we count on your support to pass it to save Prop 13 and reverse billions {just a made up number; he has no idea what might be reversed} in costly and unfair tax hikes CA Democrats {excuse me, the initiative only addresses voter-approved taxes} have imposed?
Contribute Securely: Pass a CA Taxpayer Protection Initiative in 2026 >> {Donor Link: Almost all DeMaio's donor links, regardless of what project is named in the link, go to one place, DeMaio's 2026 assembly campaign. This one goes, allegedly to Reform California, so the donor can exceed donation limits for an assembly campaign. Last year, DeMaio linked Reform California to his assembly campaign for specious reasons.}Details on the initiative requirements {DeMaio lists no details of SP13; details schmeetails.} are below – but we are SHORT ON TIME and need to raise enough funds to get the qualification process going ASAP.
The CTPI will reverse $15-20 billion in tax hikes immediately and will shield you from a Democrats exploiting a loophole they created recently in Prop 13 to impose new property taxes on every homeowner.
We can't qualify and pass the CTPI without your immediate help – so please chip in a contribution so we can get the campaign going ASAP.
Notice the misnamed initiative? DeMaio's been raising funds on this for almost four years. He would have to re-educate his list to change the name, so he keeps calling it by his old made-up name. It's all about whatever sound byte produces the best results. It would not surprise us if he used different language in different messages to the list on the same send. That's called a split test or an A/B test, a legitimate marketing technique to determine which language results in the most responses.
Needless to say, everything DeMaio claims about the Coupal's new attempt is false.
So SP13 is entirely about local tax measures.
Coupal started messing up local tax measures in 2015 with AB-809. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge threw out a challenge based on the change in 2016. It was never appealed. The lawyers were lazy and idiots in following Coupal's lead. To "fix" Coupal's "fix," he had it revised it 2017 with AB-195. Then in March 2018 Coupal directed his flunky in the assembly to file a bill to repeal it, because it was "too hard to comply with" or some such nonsense. After a May 2018 commentary by Dan Walters, which exposed the fraudulence of that argument, Coupal had the repeal withdrawn.
The changes made by AB-809 and later by AB-195 should never have been made. Three attempts to repeal them have all failed.
The real problem with local measures began in the years immediately after the passage of Proposition 13 (1978). Forced to put all local taxes on the ballot, local governments immediately and with a vengeance began taking sides in local measure elections using public monies by printing as many of the arguments in favor of the tax measure as would fit on the ballot in 75 words. San Francisco didn't limit itself to 75 words, so all bond measures for the city and county since at least the 1990's contain between 150 and 200 words, making sure the voters were given the best possible reasons for passing them. And pass they did. In every county in the state. Thousands of them over the last 45 years.
What did Coupal (and his predecessor Joel Fox) do? They tried to fix Proposition 13. Over and over again. In one of the "fixes" that passed, various courts of appeal in various districts held that every one of the provisions were unconstitutional.
Someone with a super-sized ego, however, is never going to admit culpability for the trillions of dollars in voter-approved local taxes that have been extracted from the people in every county, city, and district in the state.
He's going to try and "fix" Proposition 13 (1978). Again.
SP13 is not worth the paper it will it be written. The best thing about it is that it doesn't make the situation worse, as TPGAA would have done had it gotten to the ballot and passed.
But as noted above, SP13 does nothing. It imposes no duty on anyone. It imposes no sanction on anyone for not following its directives. It's just another gift to trial and appellate lawyers to extract more money out of tax payers, either directly through their client charges or indirectly from the charges for defending the lawsuits it will engender.
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