GUEST OPINION - As I write this, the full fury of November 2026 midterms has not arrived, but I expect we’ll see an enormous amount of energy and money spend on Proposition 43 via “The Local Taxpayer Protection Act to Save Proposition 13.” We must vote down this right-wing anti-tax scheme to reduce government services and limit the will of the electorate!
The voter guide summarizes Proposition 43 as:
“Require two-thirds vote by electorate to enact, extend, or increase local special tax initiatives and prohibit local governments and ballot initiatives from enacting ad valorem property taxes except those authorized elsewhere in the state constitution.”
In 2022, United to House LA (ULA), supported by the progressive and labor movements, campaigned for the citizen ballot initiative, and it passed with 56% of the vote. It imposed a one-time 4% tax on the transfer of property valued at least $5.3 million and a 5.5% tax on property valued at over $10,6 million. At the same time, there was a cry from the Howard Jarvis “Never-tax-anything, and we don’t care if that means no government services” (my words) crowd that this initiative would end civilization as we know it. The purpose of ULA (United to House LA) was to help fund the building of affordable housing and to otherwise fight homelessness. After winning in court as to its legality, the initiative has worked. There is now over $1 billion in the ULA fund, and it is helping tenants avoid evictions and thereby homelessness, as well as building low-cost housing.
When I attended a teach-in on the battles to weaken or abolish ULA (United to House LA), I came to understand that this is part of the larger fight by the corporate landlord lobby to limit the democratic process by citizens to control how taxes are raised and how they are spent.
It goes back to the passage of Prop. 13 in 1978, which was limited to an annual 2% increase in property taxes. Importantly, it required a 2/3 vote by the State Legislature or local government to increase property taxes. Prop. 13 itself, however, was a citizen ballot initiative and did not require a two-thirds supermajority to pass into law.
Now that the landlord lobby and the right wing is so furious that the voters in LA passed ULA, the “Mansion Tax,” they are pushing Prop 43 to avoid other local governments or local citizens from passing similar laws in other jurisdictions. The rightwing wants to accomplish this requiring a super majority vote, even on citizen-initiated ballot measures to become law. If Prop 43 has been in place in 2022, we would not have the United to House LA (ULA).
And we would not have made even less progressive measures to combat homelessness. VOTE NO ON PROPOSITION 43!
(Peter Hodes published this article in the September-October 2026 Newsletter of the AFSCME Chapter 36 retirees chapter.)
