As the above graphic shows, the current 7 judges (in pale pink fields) of the California Supreme Court, with the exception of one, were nominated by Democrat Party governors.
And since the Democrat Party wants to make the government bigger and the People poorer, when Newsom & Co. recently asked the State Supreme Court to remove from the ballot a rock-solid taxpayer protection initiative that’s already qualified, the state’s high court was “obliged” to hear it — because as recently as 2018, the Democrat-dominated Supreme Court has removed initiatives so the People couldn’t vote on them.
The well-written “Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act” would prohibit the Legislature from increasing a tax or fee or “a levy, charge, or exaction of any kind” without a two-thirds vote of the Legislature. And then the People of California would have to approve it with a majority vote! Same thing for local government tax and fee hikes and ” a levy, charge, or exaction of any kind.” See why the Democrat Party politicians and their establishment county and city tyrants hate this?
In the San Francisco state high court’s building on Wednesday, May 8, our side’s super-duper attorney, Tom Hiltachk, the official proponent of the initiative, told the judges:
- The opposing attorneys’ claims are “based not on evidence submitted to this court but on the opinions of people in the government who do not want change.”
- “What we have evolved into is it is an administrative state that has far too much power among non-elected bureaucrats, who no one knows their name, setting fees not for a fishing license fee, that’s not what this is about, but raising billions of dollars out of the economy without any legislative oversight.”
- Hiltachk warned the judges that removing the initiative from the ballot would be “making a political judgment it should not make…instead that judgment should be entrusted to voters.” And he reminded the judges that California’s legal history is replete with ballot initiatives on taxes. “The people have the last word…this tug-of-war over taxation has been going on for over 100 years.”
After the hearing, Rob Lapsley of the California Business Roundtable talked to the media and succinctly explained why Newsom & Co., the League of California Cities, and big unions oppose this good initiative, saying, “The whole issue here is that they are scared to death of the people of California being empowered to vote on state and local taxes.”
Stop and realize the People of California could vote to reduce the full-time Legislature back to a part-time legislature, and this would not be an unconstitutional “revision” of state government. Similarly, the People could limit the size of the state budget, and this wouldn’t be an unconstitutional “revision” either.
Likewise, requiring the People’s approval for taxes and fees and other government money-grabs reflects the fact that, as the California State Constitution declares in Article II, Section 1: “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for their protection, security, and benefit, and they have the right to alter or reform it when the public good may require.” This means altering or reforming the system to give more power to the People to decide money-grabs is an absolute right.
The “Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act” will go on the November ballot in late June if no more than three of the six Democrat Party judges vote to remove it. Since Gavin Newsom has three judges, they might vote against the People’s rights. It could be that close.
That the power to tax involves the power to destroy;
that the power to destroy may defeat and render useless the power to create.
John Marshall, U.S. founding father and chief justice from 1801 to 1835, in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)
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