California Proposition 37, Define Fee as Tax for Supermajority Requirement Initiative (2000)

California Proposition 37
Election date November 7, 2000
Topic Supermajority requirements
Status d Defeated
Type Constitutional amendment	Origin Citizens

California Proposition 37 was on the ballot as an initiated constitutional amendment in California on November 7, 2000. It was defeated.

A "yes" vote supported defining certain fees as taxes and require a two-thirds legislative vote to adopt these fees.

A "no" vote opposed defining certain fees as taxes and require a two-thirds legislative vote to adopt these fees.

Overview

Proposition 37 was proposed in response to the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, which authorized the state to collect fees from paint companies. The California Supreme Court upheld the fees as legal and not requiring a two-thirds vote to be approved. The ballot initiative would have regarded certain fees as taxes and thus required a two-thirds legislative vote to be approved.

Election results

California Proposition 37
Result		Votes	Percentage
Yes		4,593,406	47.94%
No		4,988,450	52.06%

Results are officially certified.

Source

Text of measure

Ballot title

The ballot title for Proposition 37 was as follows:

“

Fees. Vote Requirements. Taxes. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.

”

Ballot summary

The ballot summary for this measure was:

“

Requires two-thirds vote of State Legislature, or either majority or two-thirds of local electorate, to impose on any activity fees used to pay for monitoring, studying, or mitigating the environmental, societal or economic effects of that activity when the fees impose no regulatory obligation upon the payor. Redefines such fees as taxes. Excludes certain real property related fees, assessments and development fees. Excludes damages, penalties, or expenses recoverable from a specific event.

”

Full Text

The full text of this measure is available here.

Fiscal impact statement

See also: Fiscal impact statement

The fiscal impact statement was as follows:

“

Unknown, potentially significant, reduction in future state and local government revenues from making it more difficult to approve certain regulatory charges.

”

Path to the ballot

In California, the number of signatures required for an initiated constitutional amendment is equal to 8 percent of the votes cast at the preceding gubernatorial election. For initiated amendments filed in 2000, at least 670,816 valid signatures were required.

See also

2000 Measures

• 2000 Measures
• Taxes on the ballot
• State legislative vote requirements on the ballot
• 2000 legislative sessions

California

• California ballot measures
• California ballot measure laws

News and analysis

• Ballot measure lawsuits
• Ballot measure readability
• Ballot measure polls

External links

• 2000 General Election Voter Guide