The Sacramento City Council voted to take positions on five state ballot measures Tuesday, endorsing Propositions 1, 3 and 37 while coming out against Propositions 39 and 43. The 6-1 vote, with Councilmember Mai Vang dissenting, marked the first time since 2018 that the council has collectively weighed in on a full slate of state propositions.
Council members took up the measures ahead of the November election, when California voters will consider 14 statewide propositions in all, according to CalMatters. As reported by The Sacramento Bee, the council chose to remain neutral on the other nine measures, focusing instead on the five it determined would have a direct impact on the city. Two council members, Phil Pluckebaum and Caity Maple, were absent from the vote.
Housing Bonds and School Funding Drive the Endorsements
Sacramento's director of governmental affairs, Consuelo Hernandez, recommended the council take positions on Propositions 1 and 43, the Bee's report notes. Proposition 1 would authorize $11.25 billion in bonds toward housing assistance programs, and the city sees it as a potential funding source for high-density and affordable student housing projects.
Councilmember Roger Dickinson pushed for the endorsement of Proposition 3, which would provide tax revenue for education by making permanent a temporary income tax on California's highest earners. Dickinson argued that the city's partnership with local school systems is critical to city efforts, and said schools are elemental to the city's work developing young people, per the same account. He also suggested the council endorse Proposition 37, which would assist middle-income home buyers with down payments.
A School District on the Brink Shapes the Debate
The push for Proposition 3 came against the backdrop of a serious financial crisis at Sacramento City Unified School District, which serves the majority of students in the city and enrolls 38,000 students. The district is at risk of insolvency, and the Bee's report notes that a loss of state funding could exacerbate that financial crisis.
The scale of the district's troubles has been documented elsewhere: CapRadio reported district officials described a budget shortfall of $150 million to $220 million depending on who you ask, while EdSource put the structural deficit at approximately $221.8 million. California Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team CEO Michael Fine told CapRadio the best-case scenario is that the district runs out of cash by February 2027. EdSource has also reported that if the district receives an emergency state loan, its school board members would be stripped of their decision-making authority and become advisors to a state- or county-appointed administrator — a path other California districts have walked.
Voting Rights and Tax Thresholds Draw Opposition
The council's opposition to Proposition 39 centered on voting access. That measure would require election officials to verify voters' U.S. citizenship and require voters to show government-issued identification at the polls, and it has drawn opposition from major civil rights groups across California, according to the Bee. Vang said there is a coordinated effort to strip voting rights across the country and argued the current administration wants to limit the ability to vote. Lisa Kaplan also urged the city to oppose Proposition 39.
The council also opposed Proposition 43, which would raise the threshold required for voters to approve new citizen-initiated taxes — a change city officials warned could limit future revenue for Sacramento.
The Billionaire Tax the Council Wouldn't Touch
Notably absent from the council's motion was any position on Proposition 40, known as the billionaire wealth tax, which would impose a one-time 5% tax on an estimated 200 Californians whose net worth exceeded $1 billion at the start of the year. CalMatters reports the measure would generate a temporary revenue increase of tens of billions of dollars over several years, with a possible ongoing decrease of less than $1 billion annually in income tax revenue from billionaires, and that the money would be earmarked primarily for healthcare, with some reserved for food assistance and education. Opponents, per CalMatters, argue the tax could backfire by driving billionaires out of California and shrinking tax revenue over time.
Vang pushed to endorse Proposition 40, framing it as a way to help subsidize losses of federal funding for California healthcare and food assistance programs. She said massive federal healthcare funding cuts would drive up costs for Sacramento families. But Mayor Kevin McCarty, who had addressed the council on the ballot measures during a meeting in May, noted the council's disagreement on the measure, saying there were good groups on both sides of Proposition 40. He encouraged members to speak their minds on the other propositions instead, and the wealth tax was left out of the final motion.
Vang ultimately cast the lone dissenting vote against the council's overall motion, saying she wanted more time to review the ballot propositions before the city settled on its positions.
