Tom Steyer Campaigning on Blowing up Prop 13

The Los Angeles Unified School District announced Sunday they had reached a tentative labor agreement with United Teachers Los Angeles labor union, potentially easing concerns over a looming strike that threatened to disrupt classes for hundreds of thousands of students.

Billionaire climate activist and California Gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer posted to X that “teachers got a deal.”

That “good deal” is a two-year tentative deal to “increase teachers’ salary scales by 11.65% and raise the starting teacher salary to $77,000 per year.”

LAUSD teachers got a deal. Good. Now let's fix the reason they had to strike in the first place.

We need to fund our schools, and I'll do that by changing Prop 13 so that corporations pay real estate taxes based on their property's true value, not its value from the 1970s. https://t.co/7le6nwblZm

— Tom Steyer (@TomSteyer) April 13, 2026

California is set to spend nearly $150 billion on K–12 education, more than $27,000 per student, and a majority of the state’s kids can’t read at grade level or do basic math.

Steyer continued: “Now let’s fix the reason they had to strike in the first place. We need to fund our schools, and I’ll do that by changing Prop 13 so that corporations pay real estate taxes based on their property’s true value, not its value from the 1970s.”

Here we go again… yet another Democrat wanna-be President/Governor is agitating to remove the constitutional cap on annual property tax increases.  Steyer supports “a special election to raise corporate taxes in his first year as governor;” he wants to blow up Proposition 13.

Notably, Steyer made his fortune investing in the energy sector through his hedge fund company, the Farallon Capital Management fund, which Steyer managed until 2012. Farrallon invested in coal mines in Australia and Indonesia, as well as in tar-sands oil which is strip mined and processed to extract the oil-rich bitumen, which is then refined into oil. His climate activism is an interesting about-face.

Steyer ran for President in 2020 as a self-funded candidate, but never received pledged delegates despite spending $253 million. Steyer “went on to serve as California Governor Gavin Newsom’s top economic advisor on the Business and Jobs Recovery Task Force;” except California is bleeding jobs and businesses to low-tax states. Voters have every reason to question Steyer’s actual record.

California’s Property Tax Cap

Proposition 13 was a 1978 ballot initiative to cap property tax increases for residential and business properties and provide certainty, so property owners would not be taxed out of their homes and businesses.

Proposition 13 overwhelmingly passed by 65% of California voters, reduced property tax rates on homes, businesses, and farms by about 57%.

Opponents have long claimed that because of Proposition 13, public schools have been robbed of necessary revenue and businesses have not been paying their fair share of property taxes.

Prior to passage of Prop. 13, many seniors and those living on fixed incomes were forced from their homes because of skyrocketing property tax increases. According to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, author of Prop. 13, some properties were reassessed 50 – 100% in just one year.

Tom Steyer is proposing a “split roll” – he’s going after commercial properties, ignoring that many small businesses own their property.

Proposition 13 is one of the very few protections that California taxpayers have.

In 2020, Democrats pushed Proposition 15— a ballot initiative to reassess properties and hike taxes on all commercial and industrial properties, including manufacturing plants, retail stores and malls. It would have been the largest property tax hike in state history on employers.

Prop 15 was misleadingly called the “California Schools and Local Communities Funding Act of 2020,” written by then Attorney general Xavier Becerra, and known more commonly as the “split-roll” tax initiative.

That attempted split-roll property tax measure would also have removed Prop 13’s protections for California farmers, triggering annual reassessments at market value for all agriculture-related facilities and improvements, amounting to a $12.5 billion-a-year split-roll property tax measure, backed by the state’s major labor unions, the SEIU, and California Teachers Association.

Proposition 15 failed.

California ranks relatively high in property tax rankings, 17th out of the 50 states, even with Prop. 13. California also ranks right up at the top of the 50 states in nearly all taxing categories: income taxes, corporate taxes, gas taxes, sales taxes, wealth taxes, utility taxes… and lawmakers attempt imposing every year estate taxes and even exit taxes for people trying to move out of California.

Steyer’s justification for raising property taxes on commercial properties is President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill: “The big Republican bill is really going to hit the California budget, and that is going to blow a hole in it,” Steyer told POLITICO, referring to health care cuts in the megabill passed last year. “We really can’t wait. We’re on the clock. And so, yes, the only way to pass that is with a special election.”

“The conversations come as Steyer and other Democratic hopefuls in the governor’s race doggedly pursue endorsements from the state’s largest labor unions and groups, such as SEIU California and the California Teachers Association.”

“Implementing split-roll will impose a significant tax increase on California’s businesses, who already face the third worst tax environment in the nation – only New Jersey and New York are worse,” Wayne Winegarden with the Pacific Research Institute reported recently. “Increasing the property tax burden on commercial and industrial properties will further widen the cost differential for in-state businesses compared to their national and international competitors. Several adverse consequences will follow.”

Winegarden warns that a significant tax increase will hit California’s businesses hard. This will result in decreased profitability to businesses, and the “decreased profitability will incentivize more businesses to join the exodus from the state and relocate business activity elsewhere.”

Billionaire Steyer is willing to screw California property owners just so he can attract labor union endorsements.

Opponents of Prop. 13 have long targeted commercial property owners, playing the “us vs. them” game to justify a “split roll,” which is nothing more than a targeted tax increase on business.

Because California relies almost entirely on tax revenues and rich taxpayers to fund its annual budget, the concept of cutting taxes is antithetical to Democrats’ spending plans, thus increasing taxes is catnip to Democrats and their only solution for increasing revenues.

Steyer is just another tax-and-spend leftist exposing his political and financial illiteracy. He’s an activist with a big bank account–exactly what California does not need, and could be worse than the current governor.