How Gavin Newsom killed Prop 30, a California proposal to tax the rich for climate change
Proposition 30’s ultimate death can be traced back to Sept. 12, 2022: When an ad featuring Gov. Gavin Newsom first flashed onto the television screens of Californians across the state.
That’s the view of political observers who say the governor’s public thrashing of the plan turned off voters who would otherwise support a tax on rich residents to slow the consequences of climate change. As of Thursday evening, 59% of California voters had cast ballots against it.
“Prop. 30 not passing is 100% Gavin Newsom,” said Nick Josefowitz, a chief policy officer at the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association. Josefowitz helped conceive of the proposition and gather support for it.
“He’s a very trusted messenger,” he said.
Case in point: The television ad. In it, Newsom called Prop. 30 “a Trojan horse.”
The plan was expected to generate as much as $5 billion per year by raising taxes on the wealthiest Californians — those earning annual incomes of more than $2 million — to pay for electric charging stations, zero-emission vehicle subsidies and wildfire prevention. It set aside a large chunk of the funds raised to help people with lower incomes or in heavily-polluted communities purchase and charge electric vehicles.
Yet Newsom criticized ride-sharing company Lyft’s bankrolling of the plan, which he said put “corporate welfare above the fiscal welfare of our entire state.” By the election, the company shelled out more than $47 million in support of it. It stood to benefit: By 2030, 90% of the passenger miles driven by rideshare companies must be with electric vehicles.
In September, just days before the ad’s release, polling from the Public Policy Institute of California found 55% of likely voters would support Prop. 30.
By late October, only 41% of likely voters said they would.
While concern about Lyft’s aggressive backing of the proposition may have been a factor, Mark Baldassare, who directs PPIC’s statewide survey, pinned the drop on Newsom’s influence.
“I can’t think of any other reason why we saw the change we saw,” he said.
Newsom wasn’t bucking all of his traditional allies by denouncing the proposal. The influential California Teachers Association also came out against it. Still, the California Democratic Party and environmental groups, which typically align with the state’s highest ranking Democrat, favored it.
Gavin Newsom’s reasoning against Prop. 30
Dan Newman, a campaign advisor for the governor, said Newsom “didn’t hesitate” to publicly come out in strong opposition to Prop. 30.
“He is progressive; he is a cutting edge climate leader,” said Newman, who also worked with the campaign opposing the measure. “But he’s also a business owner who reflexively dislikes taxes and understands budget and fiscal responsibility.”
Proponents of the plan, however, saw it as a much-needed revenue source to help the state meet its ambitious climate goals.
Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at the UC Berkeley School of Law, was one of those supporters. He, too, blamed Newsom for the measure’s demise.
“The governor has standing,” he said. “And it’s confusing to the voters when you see him saying ‘vote no’ on something that otherwise seems like Democrats, who make up the majority of registered voters, would want to support.”
When in doubt, vote no?
Many times, confusion is all that’s needed to prevent voters from supporting a proposition.
“People who remain undecided tend to vote no because they haven’t been persuaded of the need to vote yes,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll.
Kyle Huey of San Francisco hadn’t given Prop. 30 much thought until he was inundated with the ad featuring Newsom. He said the disagreement between the state’s Democratic Party and the governor made him look at things closer.
“Gavin coming out against it and being really vocal changed it for me from this idea of ‘Democrats want to raise taxes, Republicans don’t’ to actually thinking about the issue,” Huey said, noting that he typically votes for Democrats.
Upon further research, Huey had concerns about how the money would be spent and that it could potentially undermine funding for public education by bypassing the state’s general fund. In the end, he voted no just as Newsom had implored.
“I think it’s one of those things where it sounds good in theory,” Huey said, “but the devil’s in the details.”
The argument for California’s climate initiative
Supporters of the measure said its passage was urgent. Californians are already experiencing the effects of climate change first hand, from rising seas, to parched farmland to catastrophic wildfires. A recent report from state scientists found the consequences of climate change are rapidly accelerating across California.
In response, state leaders have banned the sale of most new gas-powered vehicles in 2035, demanded the state reach carbon neutrality by 2045 and approved $54 billion in spending to support environmental initiatives. That includes investments to support electric vehicle purchases and charging stations.
Supporters of Prop. 30 acknowledge Newsom has done a lot to try and slow climate change but added there is much more to do.
“I’d be shocked if the governor thinks that his job is done supporting the electric vehicle transition,” Elkind said. “The transition (to electric vehicles) is going to happen anyway, but it’s a question of whether it’s going to happen fast enough to avert the worst impacts of climate change.”
Newsom helped convince people Prop. 30 wasn’t the way to get there.
This story was originally published November 11, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
