After a ruling by the California Supreme Court, the Taxpayer Protection Act (TPA) will NOT be on the ballot in November. TPA was a citizens driven initiative sponsored by the California Business Roundtable that would add accountability measures to all special taxes requiring a two-thirds supermajority to pass. Despite garnering more than 1.43 million signatures, the state’s supreme court ruled expressed concern that the ‘lookback’ provision contained in the bill was an overreach and would create significant revisions to the State Constitution.

This provision would put into question the validity of recently approved citizen backed ballot initiatives such as the real estate transfer tax Measure ULA that LA City voters passed in November 2022 that has hurt commercial and multi-family housing production while only generating less than 25% of the projected revenues.

According to the coalition supporters of TPA, they will stay together and will strategically keep the coalition together and try to defeat a slate of local ballot measures that will look to increase taxes. The coalition leadership believes that this will create the opportunity for a future revised ballot measure.