12/12/2024

POLITICO: Big Business Feels Otherwise

With the LA Chamber of Commerce leading the opposition – arguing that the revenue surge wouldn’t make it to the intended classroom cause — and the California Business Roundtable and real estate interests supplying funding for the “no” side. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association lobbed in a legal challenge. The two sides have raised more than $7 million.

And that gets us to a looming state ballot fight. Similar battle lines are forming behind the split-roll initiative to lift Prop 13’s commercial property tax limits, with UTLA backing the measure as a school funding savior and business groups revving up for heavy opposition. Of course, a local parcel tax is not the same — functionally or politically — as a statewide effort to undercut Prop 13. But to the extent they both test the electorate’s appetite for increasing taxes to fund schools, the vote today could signal what lies ahead.

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