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Jon Coupal: With friends like these

July 25, 2026

In both California and the nation at large, there is a perception that Republicans are more fiscally conservative than Democrats. While voting records and position statements generally confirm this, there are times Republicans can disappoint their constituents as badly as progressive Democrats.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is a nonpartisan organization, but it hasn’t escaped our notice that in California, Republican candidates for legislative seats invariably support Proposition 13, California’s iconic tax reduction law passed overwhelmingly in 1978. Democrats, on the other hand, while smart enough not to take on Prop. 13 directly, will support laws that weaken it.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association was founded shortly after Prop. 13 was approved by voters and exists to defend the law against all attacks. HJTA also advocates for sound fiscal policies generally and government accountability. As part of advocating for taxpayers, we vet candidates and incumbents who seek our political action committee’s endorsement for public office. Democrats, unfortunately, rarely seek the HJTA endorsement, most likely because they disagree with our contention that California is already overtaxed and overregulated.

HJTA endorses candidates based on proven records and, in those rare cases where there is no voting record, we attempt to ensure that an endorsed candidate will in fact protect the interests of taxpayers as well as defend Prop. 13. According to several polls, HJTA is the most trusted endorsement on taxpayer issues. Among Republican voters, HJTA actually scores higher than the Republican Party itself.

The consequences for a politician who promises one thing and then breaks that promise can be severe, especially when it comes to tax increases. In case there was any doubt, consider the case of George H.W. Bush with his famous “read my lips: No new taxes” pledge. After breaking that pledge, he failed to win a second term, losing to Bill Clinton.

Taxpayers are concerned with public debt as much as tax increases, because one often leads to the other. That is why any state or local bond must be scrutinized very carefully.

But another variant of debt is in the form of public employee pensions. In one respect, pension debt is more insidious because once pension benefits are granted, courts have made them virtually impossible to roll back. Reforms are generally limited to future employees.

California suffered a near catastrophe on pension debt during the great recession. The dot-com boom of the late 1990s allowed Democrats to assume high returns would last indefinitely. Foolishly, they increased pension benefits retroactively. The inevitable market crash and 2008-09 financial panic left state pension funds severely underfunded.

Former Governor Jerry Brown overcame strong opposition from public sector labor organizations to achieve some modest pension reforms. But now even those modest reforms are at risk thanks to the nearly unanimous support in the California Assembly of Assembly Bill 1383. It would lower the retirement age for some public safety workers as well as repealing other aspects of the reform. The fact that only two Republicans, Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego, and David Tangipa, R-Fresno, voted “no” on the bill is profoundly disappointing to taxpayers (and their children) who are on the hook to pay for these unaffordable generous benefits.

In another disappointing development, a handful of Republicans provided key votes to pass two bills that authorized local governments to increase their sales taxes beyond what the law allows. Currently, California has the highest state sales tax rate in the nation at 7.25%. Local governments are, under statute, allowed to add another 2% for a cap of 9.25%. But “special legislation” has allowed some localities to impose taxes even higher. The worst examples are the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale, where the sales tax rate is a punishing 11.25%.

In October, that rate will rise to 11.75% thanks to Assembly Bill 1768, which enabled Los Angeles County to increase its sales tax by another one-half percent. The bill had an “urgency” clause ahead of the June primary election, meaning it needed a two-thirds vote to pass. Although some Democrats hesitated to vote for a tax increase enabling bill, Republicans Juan Alanis, Stan Ellis, Greg Wallis, Jeff Gonzalez, and Republican leader Heath Flora voted “yes,” allowing vulnerable Democrats to skip the vote. Republican Megan Dahle provided a key vote in the Senate.

Similarly, Flora and Alanis provided “yes” votes to pass Senate Bill 762 earlier this month, enabling more than a dozen local governments to raise their sales tax above the legal cap.

Some of these ostensibly taxpayer friendly legislators asserted the weak excuse that they “only voted to allow voters to decide.” From the point of view of taxpayers, a vote in favor of a waiver to allow a tax increase is no different than a vote to raise taxes.

Regrettably, over the past two decades, California taxpayers have fewer and fewer advocates in the California Legislature. That may be one more factor behind the accelerated “de-population” of the once Golden State as citizens move to other states that don’t seize as much money from their pockets.

Jon Coupal is president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Associaiton

Orange County Register

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Jon Coupal: With friends like these

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