The tax, which has been criticized as dampening the city’s luxury real estate market (including on the Netflix series “Selling Sunset”), was approved by 58% of Los Angeles voters in 2022. But if the Taxpayer Protection Act is approved by voters, the “mansion tax” would be forced back to the ballot.

“They’re going to have to go back because of our look-back provision to get a two-thirds vote on that, instead of the majority vote that it received, in order for it to continue to move forward,” Lapsley said.

The League of Cities estimates roughly $2 billion in municipal revenue around California could be lost under the look-back provision if the funds are not re-approved by voters.

When is a constitutional amendment actually a constitutional revision?

The main argument posed by opponents of the measure is that it’s too broad to be considered a constitutional amendment.

In court documents filed last fall, lawyers for Newsom and the legislature argued the proposal is “unlike any measure that has ever gone before the voters with respect to the sweeping changes it would make to California’s fundamental governmental structure, the foundational powers of its branches, and the government’s ability to provide the essential government functions required by a functioning state.”

Supporters of the initiative argue in court documents that it “merely amends existing sections of the constitution.”

The California Supreme Court has invalidated ballot measures after ruling them illegal constitutional revisions at least twice before: In 1948, the court removed a massive ballot measure that dealt with various topics and would have repealed or amended 15 of the 25 articles of the state constitution at the time. The case preceded and helped give rise to a later rule that ballot measures deal with a single issue. The court also struck down part of a 1990 ballot measure it deemed an unlawful constitutional revision, but only after voters weighed in and approved it.

Otherwise, the state’s highest court has often defended California’s citizen initiative and referendum process as “one of the most precious rights of our democratic process” and has maintained it a “duty of the courts to jealously guard this right of the people.”

Backers of the Taxpayer Protection Act point out that the landmark Proposition 13, which limits property tax increases, faced a similar preelection challenge in 1978. At the time, the California Supreme Court allowed it to stay on the ballot.

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