The problem of popping up the California bond language reappears

California legislature is often the political game arena Whac-a-moleS

Contradictory legislation fails to clear all the procedural obstacles of the Capitol and seems to died, but suddenly it reappears through the legislative trick known as the “intestine” and greater a degree or re-introduced into the subsequent legislative session.

A classic example includes a law passed by the legislature in 1975, which limits monetary damage in court cases for abuse of medical practices.

Personal injury attorneys spent the next 47 years trying to cancel the law or raise the limit, but have repeatedly failed. Finally in 2022 they compromise with medical suppliers and insurers.

This is a story of another question that never goes away, including the formulation of voting measures that allow bond issuance or which raise taxes.

Long -time state law requires such ballots to include a statement, no more than 75 words, summarizing what any measure would do. However, it is once a common practice of sponsors of bond or tax measures to use their 75 words to praise the virtues of their measures instead of revealing their financial impact.

In 2015, Republican Assembly by Big Bear, Jay ObenolteHe was carrying a bill to make the summary of the vote a fewer inclined and more factic, requiring the measures proposed through the initiative to tell the voters how much money they would collect if approved, and how long the new taxes would remain.

Two years later, another measure of Obernolte imposed a requirement for tax and bond measures sponsored by local authorities and requires the explanation of 75 words to be “true and impartial synopsis” of the proposal, “in a language that is neither argumentative nor likely to create prejudices for or against the measure.”

Sponsors of voting and local employees intensively disliked new laws and convinced Scott Wiener, Democratic Senator from San Francisco to use gut tactics and members in 2019 to create legislation that will cancel much of what Obernolte, now Congressman, has taken.

The Wiener bill would allow the sponsors of tax and bond measures to skip, including financial impacts in 75 words, and instead allow them to tell voters: “See a voters for tax rate information.”

The motive was obvious. The existence of an evaluation of the financial impact in the voter manual, not in the summary of 75 words, means that voters will be less likely to see it and therefore more likely to vote for the measure.

Wiener won legislative approval, but governor Gavin News vetoed this bill, stating “I am concerned that this bill as a draft will reduce transparency for local tax and bond measures.”

Wiener tried it again, but failed in the session of the legislature 2023-24. He claims that the 75 -word limit leaves “little to no place to explain how new taxes or bonds will actually be spent for the benefit of the local community.”

In other words, he and the sponsors of the bill wanted to revive the old practice of using the summary of the 75 words in order to warn the virtues of the proposed tax and bond measures, throwing away the requirement to be “true and impartial synopsis”.

The mole, as it was, popped out of his hole again.

Another democratic legislator from San Francisco, Assembly, Catherine Stephanie, has entered Assembly A assembly 699Which would allow the tax effects of bond measures that are now required to be sent by voter mail, email or posted on the government’s sponsorship website.

The new bill is sponsored by low-income dwellings, which believe that housing bonds would be easier to cross if the increase in their ownership tax is less obvious, but the effects of the AB 699 will apply to all bond problems, not just those for housing.

Stupid voters are never a good thing. It’s time to get out of the little one.