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Well, it sure looks like California is beyond saving now.
In a stunning anti-democratic move, the California Supreme Court ruled on Thursday to block an anti-tax initiative from appearing on the ballot.
This initiative, known as the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act, was backed by the business community and sought to make it more difficult to increase taxes in California. Among other things, it would have required the legislature to obtain voter approval for any new or increased state taxes. There’s nothing groundbreaking about it, as voters in other states have used the ballot box to approve or deny tax initiatives before. But Gavin Newsom and the Democrat-controlled legislature were having none of it and filed a lawsuit to block the measure last fall, claiming that the initiative represented an illegal effort to amend the California Constitution and would hinder critical government operations.
And the California Supreme Court unanimously sided with Newsom.
The Los Angeles Times has more:
Justice Goodwin Liu, who authored the decision for the unanimous court, wrote that the changes proposed by the measure “would substantially alter our basic plan of government,” and could only be enacted through a revision to the state’s constitution.
