Sacramento’s Measure C mess shows that city election codes need an extreme makeover | Opinion

The Bee Editorial Board has repeatedly criticized Sacramento City Hall for placing a business tax called Measure C on the March ballot without following notification requirements written into the city charter. We have made an issue of this in several editorials because we believe that the public should know when a tax measure — even when taxes are only paid by businesses — lands on their ballots.

Measure C would increase business operations taxes by about 70% over the next several years. We oppose it because we don’t believe the public had enough notice to consider it before it appeared on city ballots with no initial opposition.

Mayor Darrell Steinberg admits the city erred when failing to post a public notice in the official city newspaper about Measure C after city council members approved putting it on the ballot at their Nov. 14 meeting. Despite this, the city clerk and city attorney still believe that the measure was passed properly and the public was informed about it on the city website. We disagree, and so does the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and a newly-formed “No on Measure C” committee.

If Measure C is passed by city voters on March 5, it will likely face a legal challenge. We’re encouraging voters to reject Measure C so that a potentially costly legal dispute is avoided, and, hopefully, so that Sacramento leaders can make important changes to its city charter and elections code so that the Measure C episode never happens again.

The Public Notice

Any real solution to this mess should start with City Charter Section 32, the section that says the city must give public notice of ordinances like Measure C. But this is not as clear and detailed as it needs to be.

There are ordinances, for example, that the city council approves that go into immediate effect and where public notice is a formality. And then there are ordinances such as Measure C that must be approved by the voters in a future election. Here, public notice is a big deal. Yet these two entirely different genres of ordinances have the same public noticing requirements, which makes no sense.

Section 32 needs an extreme makeover.

What’s more, the public notice for election measures should be more than merely publishing an item in the city’s official newspaper. It should be prominently displayed on the home page of the city’s website as opposed to, for example, somewhere on the city clerk’s site. And it should include information on how citizens can submit ballot statements for or against a measure.

A Council Deadline

A flaw in the Measure C process was that the city council voted to put Measure C on a March ballot on Nov. 14. Citizens would have had to look beyond their busy lives around Thanksgiving to learn Measure C existed in the event they wanted to file an opposing argument. The groups that now oppose Measure C did not file an opposing argument before the March ballots were printed.

A solution to this is to give the city council a cut-off date so that they are not voting to put a measure on a ballot less than three months before ballots are mailed to voters. In between when the city council advanced Measure C and voters got their ballots was Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Formal Argument Deadlines

Historically, the city has only given citizens 10 days to discover that a new measure exists. The 10-day rule is arbitrary. As Sacramento City Clerk Mindy Cuppy recently said in a Bee op-ed, that 10-day deadline is based on “past practice.” Argument deadlines should be consistent, council-approved deadlines embedded in the city’s election codes. And with a council forced to make its decisions earlier, that could leave more than 10 days for the public to weigh in.

Outside Assistance

Reforming Sacramento’s election process should not be an inside job. The mayor and the city council should enlist some expert assistance. The region is blessed to have two premiere law schools in the UC Davis School of Law and the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law. What better assignment for a law school than to help Sacramento set up improved noticing requirements as well as deadlines for council and public actions?

McGeorge Professor Mary-Beth Moylan has followed the Measure C issue closely. She suggests that McGeorge’s Legislative and Public Policy Clinic be tasked with providing recommendations. A wonderful partnership opportunity awaits.

If Steinberg and the city council were to seize this moment, something positive could come out of this.

In the meantime, vote no on Measure C.