For Republicans and smaller government types who celebrated national victories there was little joy in California because their candidates struck out. However, buried amongst the wreckage of a long election night, the message of no new taxes came through pretty clearly.
The only actual tax increase on the ballot, Proposition 21, a vehicle tax dedicated to parks, was crushed with a 58% NO vote. Proposition 24, which would have wiped out legislation from last year that promised a tax cut for businesses was also defeated by the voters allowing the tax cut to go through.
Proposition 26 passed requiring a two-thirds vote to raise fees that, in essence, were disguised taxes. Even Proposition 25, which lowered the two-thirds vote requirement to pass a budget to a majority vote, emphasized in its commercials that the two-thirds vote for tax increases was preserved.
The only two statewide candidates to log over four million votes had an anti- tax message of sorts in their main advertising. Governor-elect Brown constantly repeated: “No new taxes without voter approval.” And, Treasurer Bill Lockyer ran an ad in which he declared there would be no new taxes in the current environment.
It may be little comfort for Republicans who could experience a complete wipeout of statewide candidates, depending on the final result of the attorney general race, but the state’s voters’ aversion to taxes seems to have survived California’s Democratic wave.