LOS ANGELES -- A California taxpayers group said Monday it failed to gather enough signatures to place on a statewide election ballot a proposed constitutional amendment to require two-thirds voter approval for the issuance of most types of local bonds.
The group, Paul Gann's Citizens Committee Inc., fell about 50,000 signatures short of collecting the required 615,958 signatures by last Friday, the deadline set by the California secretary of state's office. The office allows 150 days for petition drives to gather signatures.
The Sacramento, Calif.-based Gann organization began distribution petitions in February, hoping to obtain the necessary signatures by May 15. Meeting that deadline would have allowed the group to put its proposal on California's Nov. 8 general election ballot.
The group collected only 50% of the total signatures necessary by mid-May. It redirected its efforts to placing the so-called Taxpayers Consent Act on the state's March 26, 1996, presidential primary ballot.
"We came very close, but no cigar," said Richard L. Gann, the taxpayers group's president, who said it obtained 566,800 signatures by the close of the qualifying period last Friday.
The initiative effort failed despite support from 200 different taxpayer watchdog groups, Gann said. His organization contributed $150,000 to the effort, he said.
Gann's father, the late Paul Gann, backed many initiatives, and was a co-author of Proposition 13, the landmark 1978 initiative that limited property tax rates in California.
The Gann group has time to qualify an initiative for the March 1996 ballot if it starts a new petition-gathering effort by February 1995, said Caren Daniels-Meade, chief of legislative and constituency services for the secretary of state's office.
The possibility of starting over with a new signature drive has not been ruled out completely, Gann said Monday. Such a move would be made only if the group can obtain the funds to hire professional signature gatherers, he said. The failed effort used volunteers only.
"Do I still feel there is a need to address non-voter-approved debt?" Gann said. "The answer is yes. The abuses are going to continue."
Meanwhile, a second taxpayers group, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, plans a voter signature drive to place an initiative on the March 1996 ballot to impose voting requirements on assessment districts.
The initiative "is not as far-reaching as Gann's proposal," said Joel Fox, the Los Angeles-based Jarvis group's president, on Monday. He said the timetable for the initiative drive would be finalized after "we finish our drafting."
The proposed Jarvis initiative was prompted by the defeat in the state legislature of Assembly Constitutional Amendment 43, whose author was Assemblyman Ross Johnson, R-Fullerton, Calif. The amendment, known as the "Protect Proposition 13 Act," was killed on a 4-to-7 vote on June 29 in the Assembly local government committee. The amendment would require local governments to attain a two-thirds vote for special taxes, and a majority vote for general taxes.
"Our efforts in the legislature have been frustrated again," Fox said. Last year, two Jarvis association-sponsored bills, one introduced by Assemblyman Charles Quackenbush, R-Campbell, Calif., and the other by Sen. Bill Leonard, R-Upland, Calif., also were killed in the legislature.
"The only alternative is an initiative," Fox said.
When Gann announced his petition drive plans last year, public finance market participants said the proposed initiative, if approved, would be the subject of judicial interpretation, probably postponing its implementation for years.
Some market participants said that the measure could hamstring infrastructure financing by forcing pay-as-you-go expenditures in virtually all cases.
A CreditWeek MuniCipal article published last March 28 by Standard & Poor's Corp. said the initiative "would severely limit state and local governments' revenue-raising ability and impose voter requirements that could cripple local short- and long-term debt issuance."
The article said the initiative would subject lease debt, tax anticipation notes, tax allocation bonds, and revenue bonds to a two-thirds voter approval requirement. There currently is no voter approval requirement for these types of debt.
