Under Proposition 43, the California Constitution would change after January 21, 2027. According to Seamless Bay Area, the measure mandates that no local government can impose, extend, or increase any special taxes—including through the citizens’ initiative process—unless the tax secures a two-thirds vote from the electorate. Special taxes are defined as levies dedicated to specific purposes, such as local schools, libraries, and infrastructure, rather than general governmental use.
Proposition 43 and the Two-Thirds Vote Requirement
Assembly Member Buffy Wicks authorized ACA-22 as a legislative compromise. According to Seamless Bay Area, Wicks is adamantly opposed to ACA-22, which she advanced to stave off an even more restrictive anti-tax proposal backed by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
Contrasting the Howard Jarvis Measure and Proposition 43
The competing proposal from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association featured a retroactive provision that would have invalidated past ballot measures approved via citizens’ initiatives that received less than a two-thirds vote. According to estimates from the Legislative Analyst’s Office cited by Seamless Bay Area, that retroactivity clause would have slashed local revenues by up to a couple billion dollars annually.
The revenue reductions would have hit real estate transfer taxes hardest across 26 charter cities, including Alameda, Albany, Berkeley, El Cerrito, Emeryville, Hayward, Mountain View, Oakland, Palo Alto, Petaluma, Piedmont, Richmond, San Francisco, San Jose, San Leandro, San Mateo, San Rafael, Santa Rosa, and Vallejo. These existing taxes fund basic local services like fire departments and parks. Because Proposition 43 applies exclusively to future tax measures rather than past ones, it spares those existing revenues and bypasses the retroactivity threat.
Impact on Transit Funding and Public Services
While Proposition 43 avoids retroactively overturning past elections, housing and transit advocates argue the measure creates substantial hurdles for future public investments. According to Seamless Bay Area, the measure will not directly impact the 2026 Bay Area transit measures designed to prevent service cuts and fund rider improvements.
However, transit organizations point out that future funding efforts will face a higher threshold. According to reporting from the San Francisco Chronicle cited by Seamless Bay Area, if Proposition 43 had already been in effect, several past local measures would have failed because they secured less than a two-thirds majority. Those include Alameda County’s 2025 Measure B for healthcare, Sonoma County’s 2024 Measure H for fire protection, and Santa Clara County’s June 2026 Measure D for open space preservation.
Future initiatives, such as efforts to fund affordable housing through the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority (BAHFA) via citizen initiatives or AC Transit’s upcoming efforts to renew its parcel tax supporting bus service before it expires in 2039, could also encounter difficulties under the stricter two-thirds mandate.
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