Opinion: BAHFA’s pivot to Prop 5: if you can’t win, change the rules

After the agency got sued for an unforced math error on the RM4 ballot—and polls showed 2/3 of voters would not support the $48 billion tax hike—BAHFA took its ball and went home. Rather than fix its mistake and perhaps even rework the measure to get Bay Areans on board, the regional agency decided to “pivot to Prop 5," argues the Marin Post’s Bob Silvestri. When RM4 rolls around next time, they hope to win with only 55% approval.

On the eve of the ballot registration deadline, an ad hoc, grassroots group calling themselves “20BillionReasons” accused MTC/BAHFA of making serious misleading statements and outright false claims in the ballot measure’s language as well as some really dumb, 5th grade-level math errors.

According to polling numbers available from public sources, RM4 was wildly unpopular among San Francisco Bay Area voters and consistently showed less than the support needed to pass the Measure. (The law currently requires that tax measures need a 2/3rds margin to pass.)

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However, in response to this embarrassment, instead of going back to the drawing board and rethinking the entire proposal (and learning how to add and subtract), BAHFA has decided that it will now turn its full attention to trying to change the election ground rules for voter approval by supporting the passage of State Ballot Measure 5.

Prop 5 proposes to decrease the definition of a “majority” vote needed to approve housing bond tax measures like RM4 from the current requirement of 2/3rd of the voters (66.6%) to ½ of the voters (50%). This would obviously make approval of the next iteration of RM4 much easier.

There are time-honored, good reasons for needing a 2/3rds majority to approve tax measures. A 55/45 vote is a lot easier to sway with big-money lobbyists and slick, misleading media marketing.

Read the whole thing here.

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Related:

• RM4 miscalculation triggers successful legal challenge

• Why BAHFA bailed on RM4

• Palo Alto Mayor: RM4 crashed because it upheld the myth that the Bay Area can meet an impossible housing needs assessment (1/3)

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