Bay Area officials are sounding the alarm over a lesser-known California ballot measure

It’s not often that the supporters and opponents of a ballot measure agree on what exactly it would do, let alone describe it the same way. Yet both sides of the fight over Proposition 43 have been clear: It will make it harder to raise local taxes.

What they don’t agree on is whether it’s a good idea. 

Bay Area leaders last week joined a growing chorus of local government officials across the state voicing strong opposition to Proposition 43, slamming the measure as a threat to critical financial lifelines for cities and counties.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday also said he plans to vote against Prop 43, siding with a wide collection of Democratic lawmakers and local government officials who oppose the measure. 

Supporters, led by the anti-tax Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, argue that as the state and nation grapple with an affordability crisis, raising taxes should be difficult.

General taxes, which aren’t earmarked for a specific use and go into a city’s general fund, can pass with a simple majority. But taxes that will go toward a specific purpose — like pay raises for police and fire personnel, or homeless services — are subject to a much higher two-thirds vote requirement when they’re placed on the ballot by government officials. 

This puts anyone looking to raise revenue in a strange bind: Voters are much more likely to support a tax increase when they know it’s going to fix a specific problem. They’re less likely to OK a general tax hike that could fund virtually anything. Yet the two-thirds requirement is a significant hurdle, making it almost impossible to raise special taxes.

Prop 43 would extend that two-thirds threshold to special tax measures placed on the ballot by citizen initiatives, not just those spearheaded by government officials. It would mean all special taxes would need to be approved by a much higher percentage of voters than other ballot measures.

Local leaders across California, including many in the Bay Area, have begun sounding the alarm over the implications if Prop 43 were to pass.

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, and Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee joined San Francisco Supervisor Bilal Mahmood and representatives of housing and public safety groups last week to urge voters to reject the measure, warning it would hamstring communities’ ability to raise funds for local needs. They also warned it would enhance the veto power of a select few, potentially inviting “special interests” to try to sway election outcomes. 

“Prop 43 undermines democracy by upending majority rule, making it harder for communities across California to support first responders, parks, libraries and affordable housing,” Lurie said at a press conference in San Francisco last week. “Voters know what our communities need to keep our neighborhoods safe, keep Muni moving, and build more housing.”

Supporters have cast the court decisions allowing citizens’ special tax initiatives to pass by simple majority as a loophole. If Prop 43 passes, it would essentially hit the rewind button to a period before a 2017 state Supreme Court decision led to the current simple majority rule. 

Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association spokesperson Susan Shelley said local governments would still be able to pass general tax increases by a simple majority under Prop 43, and argued local officials should prioritize their budgets to pay for essential services first.

“Proposition 43 makes it harder to raise taxes, like sales taxes,” Shelley said. “It restores the requirement for a two-thirds vote of the people if the money from a local tax will be earmarked and locked for a special purpose.”

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee appear alongside first responders to oppose Proposition 43 outside of Fire Station No. 5 in San Francisco on Oct. 7, 2026. 

The ballot measure also counts Reform California as a supporter, the campaign group helmed by firebrand GOP Assembly Member Carl DeMaio. 

The California Republican Party, along with some Republican lawmakers and a few current and former Bay Area officials, back the measure. The list includes Debora Allen, former BART director, and Quentin Kopp, former San Francisco supervisor.

The coalition of those fighting Prop 43 got a boost last week when Newsom endorsed a no vote, a position in lockstep with the California Democratic Party, several prominent Democratic state and local lawmakers and associations representing California cities and counties. 

The League of California Cities opposes Prop 43, as does the California State Association of Counties and the California Special Districts Association, collectively representing hundreds municipalities across the state.

Susan Ellenberg, president of the California State Association of Counties, said in a statement to the Chronicle that many local needs depend on community-driven funding, such as wildfire prevention, emergency response and behavioral health.

“The measure would also limit residents’ ability to propose and approve solutions through the initiative process, even when those solutions earn broad majority support,” said Ellenberg, who is also a Santa Clara County supervisor. “For local governments already facing strained budgets and increasing responsibilities, this change would reshape how communities address their most pressing priorities.”

Ellenberg and other Santa Clara County leaders backed a 2024 tax increase that they billed as a measure to fund healthcare services in the wake of Trump administration cuts. But Measure A was a general tax increase, subject to the much lower vote threshold, meaning the money can technically be spent on anything. It passed with 57% of the vote.

As of Tuesday, the Yes on 43 campaign has a slight financial edge, banking more than $10 million in campaign funds so far. The anti-43 campaign reported just under $8 million. 

In 2024, eight special sales tax measures qualified for local ballots across the state by a citizens initiative, ranging from a ¼ cent to 1 cent increase. Of the four that passed with a simple majority, none met Prop 43’s 2/3 vote threshold. The two that received the most support were Sonoma County’s Measure I to fund child care and Benicia’s Measure F to fund road improvements. They both passed at 62% and 61%, respectively. 

Other prominent special tax measures include the Los Angeles mansion tax, which voters passed by majority in 2022 and places a 4% tax on real estate sales on multimillion-dollar homes. 

Prop 43 arose out of a deal cut to avoid another qualified ballot measure from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association that took aim at elements of the mansion tax. 

It was that last-minute legislative brokering that led the anti-tax group to instead put forward Prop 43, with the help of Assembly Member Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland. Soon after Prop 43 qualified for the November ballot, Wicks disavowed it, calling it “the only path left to get the more dangerous initiative off the ballot.” 

Isaac Martin, a sociology professor at UC San Diego who has written multiple books about taxation and public finance, described Prop 43 as affecting a goldilocks-like subset of tax measures: popular enough for a simple majority, but not popular enough to pass overwhelmingly.

“Since it would make it harder for local governments to raise money for popular services, the options are to raise funds for general government, including popular and less popular services, or do without,” Martin said. “I mean, bottom line, those are sort of the only options for local governments.”

Groups that oppose the measure argue the new threshold would make it harder for communities to make hyper-specific funding decisions to tackle local priorities. 

Darrell Roberts, president of the California Professional Firefighters advocacy group representing thousands of firefighters, said the measure risks cutting off crucial public safety funding. He pointed to Measure H in Sonoma County and Measure E in Los Angeles County, both passed by voters in 2024. The taxes both raise funds to bolster the two counties’ fire protection and emergency response services — top priorities in regions that have been devastated by some of the state’s deadliest wildfires in recent years. 

“Any time you have local elected leaders, public safety and community advocates, or people that are running local health clinics or infrastructure projects, say that they need to get something done in their community, it should be the community that decides, with a simple majority,” Roberts said.