Contra Costa County must change the ballot question for Measure B, a sales tax measure on the June ballot, because the question written by county supervisors is biased to encourage a “yes” vote, a judge ruled April 1.
Measure B, placed on the ballot by the Board of Supervisors, proposes a 0.625 percent sales tax increase that would cost taxpayers an estimated $150 million per year for five years. It needs a majority vote for passage.
Two residents challenged the wording as biased, and Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Leonard Marquez agreed.
The original ballot question: “To help Contra Costa County address deep cuts in federal funding; support critical local services such as health care, supplemental food assistance, and other general county services; and reduce the risk of closures at Contra Costa’s regional hospital and health clinics, shall Contra Costa County adopt a five-eighths of one cent temporary general sales tax for 5 years, providing an estimated $150,000,000 annually, not available to the federal government and subject to annual audits and independent citizens oversight?”
The judge ruled that the ballot question must not describe federal cuts as “deep” or the county services that the tax will fund as “critical,” that the statement about the closure of health facilities be deleted, that the tax rate must be described in percentage terms (0.625 percent) in addition to the wording in the original version, and that the phrases “not available to the federal government” and “independent citizen oversight” be deleted.
Sandra Kallander, chair of the Libertarian Party of Contra Costa County and one of the petitioners in the case, praised the changes. She said the original was “so full of scary-sounding consequences for voting ‘no,’ such as the risk of hospital closures and starvation, that it read like a campaign mailer, taking sides – rather than being properly neutral.”
The ballot question now reads: “To help Contra Costa County address cuts in federal funding; support local services such as health care, supplemental food assistance, and other general county services; shall Contra Costa County adopt a five-eighths of one cent (0.625 percent) temporary general sales tax for 5 years, providing an estimated $150,000,000 annually, and subject to annual audits?”