Joe Mathews Column Says California Democratic Leaders Ought to Suggest a State Constitutional Amendment to Allow Law on Candidate Tax Returns

Joe Mathews, a commentator on California politics, here writes that if California Democratic legislators and Governor Gavin Newsom really believe in the idea that candidates should be kept off ballots if they don’t reveal their income taxes, they ought to put a proposed state constitutional amendment on the ballot. If such an amendment passed the legislature and then the electorate also voted for it, then there would no longer be a state constitutional barrier to the law that the legislature passed this year, requiring presidential primary candidates to reveal their tax returns.

Of course, even if all that happened, there is still no guarantee that such a tax returns-ballot law would be constitutional under the U.S. Constitution.


Comments

Joe Mathews Column Says California Democratic Leaders Ought to Suggest a State Constitutional Amendment to Allow Law on Candidate Tax Returns — 7 Comments

  1. Nobody has challenged the requirement that gubernatorial candidates release their tax returns.

    California should let residents self-assess and give a voter one vote for each dollar paid. No representation without taxation. This would surely incentivize tax payments.

  2. JR – One person – one vote in the JR toilet / sewer ???

    VOTERS VOTE- NOT NON-VOTERS – A TOTAL failure to follow up on Gray v Sanders, 372 U.S. 368 (1963) in the 1964 SCOTUS gerrymander cases.

    It shows every day in every way —

    esp USA/States de facto total bankruptcy.

  3. @DR,

    When a state grants one vote to each person it must give each vote equal weight.

    But why must each voter have one vote?

    It doesn’t violate the 15th, 19th, or 26th Amendment.

  4. Ok how about all candidates running for any office prove they are United states Citizen and be drug tested and have cruminal background checks. Birther everyone.

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