California Professional Firefighters, the California Federation of Teachers, the Nurse Alliance of SEIU California and the California School Employees Assn. all oppose the measure. They argue that it will make it harder to pass tax hikes to pay for police and fire departments, fix and repair local roads, staff local schools or backfill federal healthcare cuts.
They also argue that Proposition 43 skirts the California Supreme Court’s opinion on the threshold.
Gubnatorial candidate Xavier Becerra opposes Proposition 43. In a statement, he called corporations “special interests” that want the proposition to pass in order to block new taxes.
“Prop. 43 would hand special interests the power to block the resources our communities count on most: fire protection, safe roads, good schools,” Becerrra said.
Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), who authored the legislation that became Proposition 43 — ACA 22 — opposes the measure and has urged Californians to vote against it. She said the only reason she crafted the bill was because it was a necessary bargaining chip to torpedo another ballot measure backed by the Jarvis taxpayers group that would have devastated revenues for local governments and retroactively rescinded some local tax increases.
