Public Support for Transportation Sales Taxes in California: A Two County Assessment

Abstract

DOI 10.1515/cjpp-2012-0009 Calif. J. Politics Policy 2013; 5(4): 645–670 Andrew D. Green*, Max Neiman, Shel Bockman and Barbara Sirotnik Public Support for Transportation Sales Taxes in California: A Two County Assessment Abstract: Voters in California counties have been asked to approve transporta- tion sales taxes on over 75 different occasions, and according to the Legislative Analyst, revenues from local option transportation sales taxes accounted for 15% of all revenues raised statewide for transportation during fiscal year 2005/2006. While many analyses examining public support for such taxes have been under- taken using aggregate-level data, little work has been done examining the indi- vidual decision to support a transportation sales tax at the polls. In this paper, we argue that an individual’s propensity to approve or deny a sales tax extension for transportation purposes is a function of a set of attitudinal and self-interest factors. Using a two-county survey, we find that opposition to the renewal of the existing sales tax is centered among anti-tax, political conservative residents who do not trust elected officials. Furthermore, we find that while the two counties border one another, the impact of the attitudinal and self-interest factors in the model vary significantly by county. The findings are important for transportation practitioners who face future transportation sales tax elections, and for politi- cal scientists who are attempting to develop a generalizable set of factors which explain public support for transportation sales taxes. Keywords: county; elections; sales tax; transportation. *Corresponding author: Andrew D. Green, Central College, Political Science, Campus Box #0101, 812 University Pella, Iowa 50219, USA, Tel.: +641-628-5259, e-mail: greena@central.edu Max Neiman: Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA Shel Bockman and Barbara Sirotnik: Institute of Applied Research & Policy Analysis, California State University, San Bernardino, CA, USA 1 Introduction Over a decade ago a coalition of highway-oriented interests referred to Califor- nia’s roads and freeways in the following way: California, which once had the best highway system in the country, now ranks near the bottom nationally, as investment in the state’s transportation infrastructure has failed to keep pace with population growth and burgeoning vehicle travel. (Transportation California 1999: p. 3)