Homeless-industrial complex sends out deceptive mailers about Measure A

Given the amount of money that the “experts” are making from the temporary sales tax L.A. County residents are paying for homelessness programs, it’s not surprising that they want to double that sales tax and make it go on forever.

Recently United Way of Greater Los Angeles paid for a mailer that went out to 1 million L.A. County households, according to journalist Doug Smith, who reported on it for the Los Angeles Times. The mailer extolled the virtues of Measure A, which will appear on the November ballot countywide in Los Angeles.

“This is not a campaign piece of mail,” Tommy Newman, United Way’s vice president for public affairs and activation told the Times. “It doesn’t say ‘Vote yes.’”

It also doesn’t say the measure is a sales tax increase.

“You only get so much space in these pieces,” said Newman.

United Way of Greater Los Angeles sent another mailer that landed in homes this week, and there wasn’t room to mention the tax increase on that one, either.

Measure A is deceptive on multiple levels. Start with the fact that state law limits local sales tax add-ons to a total of 2% above the California’s highest-in-the-nation state sales tax of 7.25%. Yet dozens of L.A. County’s 88 cities already have a sales tax higher than 10%. How did that happen?

It happened because L.A. County’s Board of Supervisors asked the state legislature to pass special laws allowing higher sales taxes that would not be counted against the 2% cap. The latest one was Assembly Bill 1679.

While considering the bill in the Senate Governance and Finance Committee last summer, members observed that AB 1679 simply allowed local voters to decide if they wanted to pay a higher sales tax.

And now the voters are receiving glossy campaign-style mail from United Way of Greater Los Angeles that omits any mention of a tax increase.

Here’s another troubling problem: Measure A is squeezing through a court-created loophole in Proposition 13, requiring only a simple majority, 50% plus one vote, to pass. The state constitution requires a two-thirds vote to pass local taxes for a specified purpose. However, the California judiciary has been stretching some comments in a 2017 state Supreme Court decision to hold that if a tax increase is put on the ballot by a “citizens’ initiative,” the state constitution doesn’t apply.

Measure A increases and extends the sales tax hike in Measure H in 2017, which did receive the required two-thirds vote, but only after the county spent about $1 million in public funds on an “informational” campaign that was suspiciously similar to “express advocacy” campaign advertising. In fact, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, where I am on staff as VP of communications, filed a lawsuit that eventually resulted in the Fair Political Practices Commission levying a fine of $1.35 million against L.A. County. The county admitted no wrongdoing.

United Way of Greater Los Angeles says its “informational” mailers are not campaign advertising. They contribute to a separate account for that. According to campaign finance reports filed with L.A. County through June 30, the “Experts United for Homelessness and Housing Solutions” committee had received more than $700,000 in “forgiven” loans from United Way of Greater Los Angeles this year.

The informational mailers paid for by United Way of Greater Los Angeles also carried the logos of two other organizations: PATH and Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles.

Here’s more information.

The president and CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles, Erin Rank, was paid total compensation of $349,823. Four other executives were paid between $181,000 and $206,000.

The president and CEO of United Way of Greater Los Angeles, Elise Buik, was paid total compensation of $746,554. Nine other executives were paid between $132,000 and $258,000.

These organizations receive money from the Measure H sales tax increase, which is set to expire in 2027. They put Measure A on the ballot to double the tax and make it permanent.

But in their informational mailers, they’d rather not say so.

Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on Twitter @Susan_Shelley