Measure E’s likely defeat easy to understand: Fresno County voters don’t like taxes | Opinion

Six years ago, Fresno voters took the unprecedented step of funding the city’s beleaguered parks, trails and arts programs from their own wallets.

Yet Measure P wasn’t necessarily proof the local electorate was open to taxing themselves for things they generally like. Though a few power brokers, most prominently construction magnate Richard Spencer, couldn’t help but try. Or in Spencer’s case, try twice.

For the second time in 16 months, Fresno County voters opted not to fund a campus-wide construction boom at the region’s largest university, nor shoulder the facilities maintenance burden. In overnight returns from Tuesday’s primary election, 56% of them (56.14% to be exact) voted “no” on Measure E aka the Fresno State tax.

The results are more lopsided than in November 2022, when nearly 53% (52.86%) of the electorate made the same choice about Measure E’s first incarnation.

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Also on that ballot, a renewal of the county’s roads and transportation tax (Measure C) fell well short of the two-thirds majority of “yes” votes it needed to pass. As did Measure M, a city of Fresno effort to fund facilities and services for veterans.

In the years since Measure P, only one local tax initiative has managed to buck the no-on-taxes trend: the one supporting Fresno Chaffee Zoo. Fresno sure loves its zoo.

Taxes are always a tough sell to voters. But even more so during a time when food and gas prices remain through the roof even though we’re being told inflation has slowed.

That and the historically low turnout in the primary election, which meant active, informed voters played an outsized role in the outcome, combined to doom the measure.

Measure E campaign consultant Tim Orman, in his interview with The Bee’s Editorial Board, indicated there would be no third attempt at a Fresno State tax if the second failed.

In November, California voters will be asked to raise the vote requirement for all local special taxes to a two-thirds majority. Meaning the window may close regardless, or at least narrow significantly.

GOP-backed initiatives split

The other two countywide ballot measures were more or less muscle-flexing exercises by the Republican majority on the Fresno County Board of Supervisors. Specifically Nathan Magsig and Steve Brandau, who placed them on the ballot.

One is headed for victory at the ballot box. The other was issued a resounding defeat.

Measure A, which received 56% approval, was their way of sidestepping a 2022 state law requiring Fresno and dozens of other California counties to hold their elections for district attorney and sheriff during the presidential cycle.

Exceptions were made for counties whose charters (as of Jan. 1, 2021) specifically designate those elections to a different cycle. Since Fresno’s charter contains no such language, Measure A would make the necessary amendments – albeit well after AB 759 took effect.

The politics are obvious. Republicans want these important local elections kept in the off-year cycle, when voter turnout is a fraction of presidential elections, which is the exact opposite of the Democrats’ game plan.

In the election run-up, the initiative’s opponents (a coalition that includes Democratic Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula, state Senator Anna Caballero and the League of Women Voters of Fresno) said Measure A “will surely” be challenged in court because it violates state law.

Guess we’ll soon find out. But the message from county voters is they prefer to keep local law enforcement and presidential elections separate.

That same electorate, on the other hand, wanted no part of Measure B. Nearly 64% of them returned ballots marked “No.”

Unlike Measure A, the intent of Measure B was opaque. On the surface, it was about clarifying the supervisors’ role in deciding place names of unincorporated areas in Fresno County. But really, it was about the county’s ongoing legal tussle with the state over the law that removed the term “squaw” from all place names in California – including a certain foothill community east of Fresno now known as Yokuts Valley.

The even more confusing part is that even if Measure B passed, it still wouldn’t have given Magsig and Brandau the power to restore the old name. And when voters are confronted with something that isn’t clear, something they don’t immediately understand, voting “no” is oh so much easier.