A volunteer-run campaign led by San Francisco activist Gina Tse-Louie is taking a third swing at the ballot box, aiming for 2026 with a measure to roll back parts of Proposition 19 that reassess inherited homes to current market value. Supporters argue the rule change has slammed heirs in high-cost counties with steep tax hikes and say restoring the old parent-to-child protection would bring back the safety net many families relied on for decades.
According to the East Bay Times, the drive, which calls itself "Fix Prop 19 to Save Our Children's Future," marks the third statewide petition, following earlier attempts in 2022 and 2024 that fell short of the required number of verified signatures. Organizers say they will need to collect nearly 875,000 valid voter signatures to land the measure on the 2026 ballot.
Personal cases fuel the petition
Campaigners are leaning heavily on personal stories to make their case, including that of Sunnyvale resident Sheri Duffy. Advocates say her family's property tax bill rose from about $1,300 to roughly $18,000 per year after her mother died, a jump they contend made it unrealistic for the family to keep the house. Duffy and her siblings ultimately sold the longtime family home, and organizers say each walked away with roughly $700,000 after disbursements. Backers of the repeal highlight cases like hers to argue the measure is about protecting middle-class heirs, not shielding only large or wealthy estates.
Analysts warn of big fiscal trade-offs
The Legislative Analyst's Office has estimated that undoing Prop. 19's inheritance provision would cut state and local revenues by about $1 billion to $2 billion a year over time. As the Legislative Analyst's Office outlines, that projected loss would grow as the reassessment effects of current law compound over the years. At the same time, annual reviews by the California Department of Finance for 2023 through 2025 found little evidence that Prop. 19 has produced net new revenue, a point opponents of the repeal use to argue the state could not easily absorb another budget hit.
Why the Bay Area feels it harder
County assessors and campaign supporters point to the Bay Area's runaway housing market, where many buyers now shell out millions for a single-family home, as a key reason the $1 million reassessment cushion under Prop. 19 often falls short. When a property's taxable value suddenly jumps toward its current market value, they say, heirs can find themselves paying far more than their parents ever did, with decades of low tax bills turning into sharp, and sometimes unmanageable, increases almost overnight.
Who’s backing the measure and who’s not
Proposition 19 was originally championed by the California Association of Realtors, and the new repeal effort is picking up support from taxpayer advocates and some homeowner groups. However, one of the state's most well-known anti-tax organizations, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, has not signed on to this petition, stating that it is concentrating instead on other priorities and on closing what it views as loopholes in Proposition 13.
What comes next
For now, the campaign faces the grind of signature gathering and the strict verification process that has derailed earlier efforts. The prior attempt that came closest managed to verify approximately 560,000 signatures, well short of the required number this time around. Suppose supporters manage to qualify their measure for the 2026 ballot. In that case, they are bracing for a fierce fight in Sacramento and at the county level over who should shoulder the cost: heirs trying to hang on to family homes or local governments confronting thinner property tax rolls.
Whether the latest push clears the signature bar will depend on how much volunteer muscle organizers can muster and how voters weigh the personal stories behind reassessments against state and county budget concerns. Regardless of the outcome, the campaign puts inherited-property rules and the boundaries of Proposition 13 back at the center of California's long-running, and still unsettled, tax debate.
