Opinion ID: 1436613
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: future tax measures

Text: (10) Section 9.114 of the San Francisco Charter provides: No initiative, ordinance or measure or declaration of policy approved by the electorate under the provision [ sic ] of this charter shall be subject to veto, or be amended or repealed except by vote of the electorate, unless such ordinance or measure shall otherwise provide. Section 707.1 of the revenue/business regulations, in addition to repealing the residential utility tax, provides in subdivision (c) that it may be amended only by the voters. Respondents claim that this ban on future amendment by the legislative body is invalid. The subdivision is actually surplusage, however, and adds nothing to the effect of the initiative measure. Because regulation section 707.1 is an initiative measure, it is subject to section 9.114 of the charter. Therefore, like any initiative, either by virtue of the identical constitutional limitation [19] or by virtue of the charter, may be amended or repealed only by the electorate. The Court of Appeal, relying on Hunt v. Mayor & Council of Riverside, supra, 31 Cal.2d 619, and Campen v. Greiner, supra, 15 Cal. App.3d 836, concluded that regulation section 707.1 was invalid to the extent that it precluded amendment by the board of supervisors because it divested the board of its power to enact tax legislation. Appellant argues that the court erred in this respect also. We agree. The decisions on which the Court of Appeal relied are not controlling. Hunt v. Mayor & Council of Riverside, supra, 31 Cal.2d 619, held only that neither the constitutional nor the city charter power of referendum could be used to subject a sales tax ordinance to a vote of the people. We concluded that the charter could not be construed as contemplating that the city council budget process would be hampered by the uncertainty as to revenue available from all sources and the consequent delay in its fixing the property tax rate that would occur if a major source of revenue such as the sales tax were subject to a referendum. (31 Cal.2d at p. 629.) The decision considered only the scope of the referendum power. Campen v. Greiner, supra, 15 Cal. App.3d 836, in addition to improperly applying the Myers backhanded referendum rule to a charter city, held that the initiative's bar to any future imposition of a utility tax was invalid as an attempt to do by initiative ordinance something that could only be done by charter amendment. The city council could not restrict its own powers and the legislative powers of the electorate were no greater than those of the council itself. Therefore, the court reasoned, the only manner in which such a bar could be enacted was through amendment of the city charter. The Campen court overlooked a fundamental aspect of the initiative power, one present in both the constitutional and, presumably, most charter initiative provisions. The people's reserved power of initiative is greater than the power of the legislative body. The latter may not bind future Legislatures ( City and County of San Francisco v. Cooper (1975) 13 Cal.3d 898, 929 [120 Cal. Rptr. 707, 534 P.2d 403]), but by constitutional and charter mandate, unless an initiative measure expressly provides otherwise, an initiative measure may be amended or repealed only by the electorate. Thus, through exercise of the initiative power the people may bind future legislative bodies other than the people themselves. ( Kugler v. Yocum, supra, 69 Cal.2d 371, 375, fn. 2; Higgins v. City of Santa Monica (1964) 62 Cal.2d 24, 30 [41 Cal. Rptr. 9, 396 P.2d 41].)