California Supreme Court’s Shocking Decision Blocking the Taxpayer Protection Act from the Ballot
Voters denied opportunity to act on Taxpayer Protection Act
By Katy Grimes, June 20, 2024 1:19 pm
Today, the majority Democrat-appointed judges on the California Supreme Court silenced the 1.43 million Californians who signed and placed the Taxpayer Protection Act on the November ballot.
The following are statements on California Supreme Court Ruling on Taxpayer Protection Act:
The Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act (TPA) campaign
The Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act (TPA) campaign issued the following statement from Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and Matthew Hargrove, president and CEO of the California Business Properties Association:
“Today’s ruling is the greatest threat to democracy California has faced in recent memory. Governor Newsom has effectively erased the voice of 1.43 million voters who signed the petition to qualify the Taxpayer Protection Act for the November ballot. Most importantly, the governor has cynically terminated Californians’ rights to engage in direct democracy despite his many claims that he is a defender of individual rights and democracy. Evidently, the governor wants to protect democracy and individual rights in other states, but not for all Californians.
We are disappointed that the California Supreme Court has put politics ahead of the Constitution, disregarding long-standing precedent that they should not intervene in an election before voters decide qualified initiatives.
Direct democracy and our initiative process are now at risk with this decision, showing California is firmly a one-party state where the governor and Legislature can politically influence courts to block ballot measures that threaten their ability to increase spending and raise taxes. Using the courts to block voters’ voices is the latest effort from the Democrats’ supermajority to remove any accountability measures that interfere with their agenda – a failed agenda that continues to drive up the cost of living with little accountability and few results.
This ruling sends a damning message to businesses in California and across the country that it is politically perilous to invest and grow jobs for the future.
In light of this ruling and the state’s large budget deficit, a huge amount of tax increases are on the way that are sure to make California’s cost of living even higher.
We will continue to explore our legal options and fight for the people’s right to hold their government accountable through direct democracy.”
Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher (Yuba City) statement on the California Supreme Court decision to remove the Taxpayer Protection Act from this November’s ballot:
“This decision is an outrageous abuse of power by seven Justices who think they know better than the 40 million people of California. The Court is supposed to look out for the people, not rubber stamp the anti-democratic schemes of politicians hell-bent on protecting their power. Today, the Court silenced the voices of Californians and shredded its credibility in the process.”
Assemblyman Bill Essayli (R-Riverside):
“California is a fallen republic. When the CA Supreme Court can block the People from voting on a ballot initiative, we have devolved from a constitutional to a banana republic. This decision is outrageous and I hope voters will make their voices heard in November by voting out every incumbent democrat who supported this attack on our democracy.”
Assemblyman Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale):
“Californians have been denied their fundamental right. Residents now cannot protect themselves against a growing government that wants more of their precious dollars.
“It is outrageous that the California Supreme Court is silencing the voice of 1.43 million Californians.
“The California Supreme Court’s role is to ‘maintain uniformity in the law,’ yet today, they chose partisan interests and a bloated government over everyday Californians.”
The Globe’s good friend Steve Hilton weighed in:
LA County Taxpayers Association’s Statement:
The Los Angeles County Taxpayers Association Chairman Aidan Chao on behalf of its Board following Thursday’s Supreme Court Ruling:
“Today, California’s Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a grave assault on voters by Governor Newsom, organized labor, special interest groups, and the state legislature. By removing the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act from November’s ballot, the Governor has stripped the ability of California residents’ sacred direct democratic process. Furthermore, he denied over 527,000 Angelenos their say in direct democracy he claims he defends by invalidating their signatures to qualify this initiative.
While the Los Angeles County Taxpayers Association is incredibly disappointed in the activist Court and the politicization of Californians’ quality of life, we will never stop advocating for the rights of taxpayers and holding our lawmakers accountable for their tax-and-spend agendas.
The Taxpayer Protection Act was California’s most significant opportunity to protect Proposition 13 and strengthen voters’ and businesses’ stakes in the future of our state. This ruling sends a message that California is no longer welcome to businesses or those who desire a sustainable, affordable life.
Following today’s unfortunate ruling, we will decide in short time our subsequent actions as coalition partners and continue defending Angelenos from government overreach and overtaxation. https://la-tax.org.
Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association President Jon Coupal:
Be sure to tune in this afternoon to HJTA President Jon Coupal who will talk with John Kobylt on KFI 640 AM in Los Angeles today at 1:05 P.M. about the shocking state Supreme Court decision to remove the Taxpayer Protection Act initiative from the November ballot.
You can also stream the broadcast live online. Click here to listen to KFI live on HJTA.org!
The Globe will continue to update statements on the shocking state Supreme Court decision to remove the Taxpayer Protection Act initiative from the November ballot.
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What can we do? Seriously?
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I’m beginning to believe that this is truly the most intelligent alternative at this point…
We’re not getting any younger, and don’t feel the need to be the whipping post for these out-of-control Communist Democrats who think they know better and are not accountable to the citizens/electorate of the formerly great state of California…
FUBAR…..
Take Asm Bill Essayli’s advice above and tell everyone you can get your hands on to ALSO take Bill Essayli’s advice above. We can’t HAVE this outrageous state of affairs. It’s ENOUGH ALREADY with the destructive Dem Marxist California politicians. We’re done with these people. They must GO.
But what good does it do to “vote out every incumbent Democrat” when the electronic voting platform(s) they’ve implemented have demonstrated security exploits that either enable changing our votes via “adjudication” or outright tabulate the votes inaccurately, based upon algorithmic weighting…
Not to mention outright voter fraud, voter roll mismanagement and cheat-by-mail voting procedures???
It’s 99.95% CORRUPTION at every turn in this state….
https://votingsystems.cdn.sos.ca.gov/vendors/dominion/dvs510staff-report.pdf start reading around page 19 to the end… exploit after exploit explained away – with corrupt election “officials”, who’s going to be looking out for the common citizen???
SO many of these potential weaknesses (most of which have been confirmed via various articles that are documented on The Gateway Pundit . com ) are explained away with language like “The findings can be
mitigated by rigorous adherence to physical security processes and procedures, which
would preclude the introduction of any malicious applications. ” OR “The findings can be
mitigated by rigorous manual adherence to industry best practices of
password/passcodes.”
Then there’s this observation, which has been documented by The Gateway Pundit that these password are FREELY AVAILABLE on the internet!!!
“During enumeration of the Dominion system it was determined that a number of
passwords were able to be recovered that were stored in plain text. However, the
system is secured with Windows authentication and role based access controls.
Upon investigation of access control and authentication methods for the systems it
was discovered that the Dominion technician keys contain all the same default
passcode, however the default passcode can be changed by the jurisdiction in Election
Event Designer (EED). It should be noted that the Dominion technician keys are not
readily available. All other iButton security keys are programmable with new passcode
combinations.”
Then there’s THIS screaming bug :
“The ICE machine includes a design characteristic that merits some attention. Any
machine that includes ballot marking and deposit into the ballot box in the same paper
path, is not software independent, and could be compromised in a way that is
undetectable with a manual tally or risk limiting audit. The ballot-marking printer is in the
same paper path as the mechanism to deposit marked ballots into an attached ballot
box. This opens up a security vulnerability: the voting machine can mark the paper
ballot (to add votes or spoil already-cast votes) after the last time the voter sees the
paper, and then deposit that marked ballot into the ballot box without the possibility of
detection. Vote-stealing software could easily be constructed that looks for undervotes
on the ballot, and marks those unvoted spaces for the candidate of the hacker’s choice.
This is very straightforward to do on optical-scan bubble ballots (as on the Dominion
ICE) where undervotes are indicated by no mark at all. The autocast configuration
setting that allows the voter to indicate, “don’t eject the ballot for my review, just print it
and cast it without me looking at it.” If fraudulent software were installed, it could change
all the votes of any voter who selected this option, because the voting machine software
would know in advance of printing that the voter had waived the opportunity to inspect
the printed ballot. This would be mitigated by using the ICE for accessible sessions
only. Additionally, the ICE should include procedural controls whereby a technician
completes the L&A procedures prior to an election, and then a second technician goes
through the validation procedure to validate the firmware and software on the ICE, and
then applies the seals to the machine. Any ICE that is presented at a polling place with
broken seals should be replaced.”
It’s all there on the CA SOS website – these machines ENABLE vote manipulation, via “adjudication” and tabulation…
And then there’s THIS cryptic, yet SERIOUS flaw description :
“During the ICX source code vulnerability review, one potential vulnerability was
discovered and the level of access required to take advantage of this potential
vulnerability would be open to a variety of actors including a voter, a poll worker, an
election official insider, and a vendor insider. This potential vulnerability has a more
widespread potential. Polling place procedural controls are one method of mitigating this
issue, with poll workers actively verifying that the USB ports are covered and the covers
sealed to prevent access.”
Yet the security review DOES NOT DESCRIBE exactly WHAT this “potential vulnerability” is, only that it can be exploited by ANY OR ALL of the following : “… a voter, a poll worker, an election official insider, and a vendor insider.”
Still believe in election integrity in California???
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A lot of us don’t have the financial or physical means, and, as I pointed out on another thread, there’s nowhere to run. I have friends and relatives in several red states. They tell me that they have been fighting tooth and nail against the same leftist/Technocrat agenda – and they’ve been gradually losing ground. Not surprising, given that while we follow the law, our enemies have been engaged in a program of lies, intimidation, character assassination, election fraud, theft, vandalism, arson, and the occasional murder. It’s like being in a cage match where the referee has been paid off and the other guy is using brass knuckles. it doesn’t take a genius to see how that will end.
Here’s a question: what would the vermin in Sacramento do if a majority of Californians just didn’t bother to file or pay taxes next year – and formed neighborhood militias to defend themselves and their neighbors from state attempts at arrest or other forms of enforcement, such as property seizure? Such questions are no longer extremist or unreasonable, not when the government is determined to quash all forms of peaceful redress.
I have been thinking the same thing. What if California taxpayers organize and do not pay their state taxes? What the state can do? Send us all to jail? Confiscate our property?
Maybe its time for some “mostly peaceful demonstrations”, because sitting passively by and signing petitions and initiatives isn’t working…
Can’t it go to the US Supreme Court. ???
Sadly, this was “merely” a state issue so SOCTUS would have to jurisdiction in this case. The best that can be done is obviously, first, vote out as many Dem legislatures as possible, and second, craft a new initiative or rather a package of initiatives that amend the constitution each in a more specific manner so that the State Supreme Court would have to violate the state’s constitution even more flagrantly to shoot them down. Start with an initiative that requires voter approval for all statewide taxes. Then one that requires voter approval for any increase in statewide fees, and so on and so forth.
To hear more, below is HJTA’s Susan Shelley’s take on this shocking turn of events:
“Susan Shelley (HJTA) on John Phillips KABC AM 790”
(begin at the 19:15 minute marker)
https://omny.fm/shows/the-drive-home-with-jillian-barberie-and-john-ph-1/paul-webster-and-susan-shelly?in_playlist=the-morning-drive-with-jillian-barberie-john-phill
Newsom’s not so subtle message to us all about power, control and our dim future….
You are not really surprised, are you?
Are they saving democracy by destroying it?
Local Californians, every one of whom is subject to multiple local government taxes of one kind or another that they already vote on, should breathe a sigh of relief that TPGAA was thrown off the ballot, even if the court’s reasoning was faulty.
We wonder whether the individuals quoted in this article have ever read TPGAA. If they have, did they understand it?
Repeating the propaganda of the promoters serves no one. Nor does giving the promoters cover for their failure.
The “protectors” of Proposition 13 have never shown one whit of interest in the actual elections that Proposition 13 and its progeny foisted upon local voters. Right out of the gate in 1980, the local governments, with no one holding them accountable to the existing law, cheated by taking sides in the local elections using the ballot label (public moneys) for their arguments in clear violation of the law — “Shall the measure (stating the nature thereof) be adopted?”. Look up the word “nature” in a dictionary and then read the Supreme Court opinion in Boyd v. Jordan (1934) 1 Cal.2d 468, where the court’s holding was almost entirely based on “the nature of” a statewide initiative (in the that case).
By putting the whole shooting-match in the Constitution, where it has never belonged, TPGAA conflicted with statutes that have been unchanged for over a hundred years. TPGAA would have ensconced the government taking sides in local measure elections using public moneys in the Constitution.
As the promoters found out last week, we were working to have the funders, like Mssrs. Lapsley and Hargrove, withdraw TPGAA.
We wrote a length paper on the subject. We published it on June 19, 2024 after a dishonorable funder circulated the link among the promoters.
Anyone who wants to see how really bad TPGAA was is welcome to read as much of the paper as interests them.
http://www.bigbadbonds.com/rc.cfm?i=cg0620&d=tpgaapr
At least one of the quoted individuals should retire, resign, or be removed for decades of failure to “protect” Proposition 13.
The proponent exposed the real purpose of TPGAA at the oral argument. “This is most decidedly a case that begs for post-election analysis, and there are multiple reasons for that.” Ka-Ching$. He knew that there is almost no word and no sentence in the language that TPGAA changed that would not instigate a lawsuit. What local tax payer could have afforded that? Did the promoters really expect the Legislature would just roll over and start enacting every tax and exempt charge (under the new scheme) as legislation? They could just ignore the Constitution and the statutes as they already do. Then what?
We thought journalists were tasked with giving all sides.
Or California Globe can just keep printing the self-serving bloviating of the propagandists.
[What a gauntlet to prove humanity.]
This ruling is the #1 reason to elect Trump (a man I care little for):
The 100% Democrat-appointed CA State Supreme Court just decided UNANIMOUSLY to block the voters’ right to put limitations on tax increases.
If Biden is elected in 2024, his handlers will appoint the successors to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The current U.S. Supreme Court is the last bastion against the madness of the left. If we lose that court, there’s nothing to stop the Dystopian plans of our progressives.
That includes, but is CERTAINLY not limited to:
* Open borders.
* Legalizing discrimination against whites and Asians.
* Denying parents the right to decide what’s best for their kids.
* Outlawing school choice.
* Double standards for crime — based on race, gender, etc.
* Mandating that trannies can compete against the REAL female athletes.
* Government severely limiting free speech (as Canada now does).
* Allowing non-citizens to vote.
* Overturning the 2nd Amendment.