State Assembly District 35

1.  Proposition 13 was passed by voters in 1978 to protect homeowners and property owners from runaway property taxes. It requires a 2/3ds vote of the local electorate to raise property taxes on residential and commercial properties and limits annual reassessment and adjustment of property taxes to 1% of assessed value. If a property is sold or transferred to new ownership, property may be reassessed to current value.  Proposition 13 prevented millions of property owners from losing their homes over the past 4 decades, but remains a target of groups seeking to raise additional revenues for government programs.  Proposition 13 also prohibited the Legislature from raising non-property taxes without a 2/3ds vote of the Legislature.  Do you support retention of Proposition 13 as is?

2.  Split Roll – Currently, 2 proposals are pending for the November 2020 general election ballot, to modify Proposition 13’s protections to eliminate the equal treatment of residential and commercial properties and allow for additional taxes to be imposed on commercial properties by a lower vote threshold than 2/3ds. This has been referred to as “the split roll,” because the measures would retain the current Proposition 13 property tax roll rules for residential homeowners but would allow for a new, different tax roll for commercial properties. State and local governments are awash in revenues from recent raises of income tax rates and the booming economy but face budget pressures from government employee pension benefit obligations and a Legislature that wants to spend additional money to fund new or increased government benefit programs. Do you support retaining the current Proposition 13 unified roll for residential and commercial properties or a new “split roll” to raise government revenues?

3.  Proposition 13 on the March 3, 2020 Ballot – There is a different Proposition 13 on the March 3, 2020 Ballot. This measure would authorize $15 billion for school and college facilities in California, including $9 billion for preschool and K-12 schools, $4 billion for universities, and $2 billion for community colleges. California voters have approved nearly $45 billion in bonds for schools, colleges and universities since the year 2000, and this measure would raise the total to $60 billion in two decades. In addition, this measure would nearly double the current limits on bonded indebtedness for local school districts from 1.25% to 2 % of assessed property valuation and similarly for community college districts to raise bonded indebtedness from 2% to 4% of assessed valuation.  Do you support raising an additional $15 billion in bond funding for schools and community colleges and nearly doubling their bond debt limits?

4.  Public funds for ballot measure campaigns — State law prohibits public officials from spending tax dollars to conduct election campaigns to raise taxes and bonds. However, penalties for violation of these laws are rarely enforced, and although public officials may be personally liable for approving such illegal expenditures, the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) has only recently fined public agencies for breaking these laws, and the Legislature has blocked efforts to give the FPPC and district attorneys greater authority to enforce these laws. Los Angeles County in 2016 spent over $1.5 million on campaign materials to successfully promote a $2 billion homeless housing bond measure.  In SLO County, the local transportation agency spent nearly 3/4 of a million dollars on an unsuccessful campaign to promote a 1/2 cent transportation sales tax measure.  Do you support tougher legislation and enforcement efforts to enforce current law prohibitions against our government spending taxpayer dollars on such election campaign materials?

5.  Efforts to convert from natural gas to electric energy – Recently, the City of SLO considered adopting a law to require all new residential and commercial buildings either to provide for alternate (electric) energy to replace natural gas for heating and cooking or an excise tax to fund promotion of conversion from natural gas heating to electricity alone. The State Legislature also enacted new legislation to promote such local energy conversion efforts. Restaurants and natural gas providers have opposed such conversion laws and recently the state restaurant association sued the City of Berkeley over the law enacted in that city.  Do you support or oppose such energy conversion laws, even if their financial and efficient heating effects have not been fully analyzed?