Key Points

  • The phrase "cases of emergency" in California Constitution article XIII C, section 2, subdivision (b), takes its ordinary meaning, unforeseen circumstances that call for immediate action, with no limit on the nature of the emergency.
  • Proposition 218's liberal-construction clause does not narrow the meaning of "emergency" or limit a governing body's authority to invoke the exception.
  • The court declined to choose between the independent-review standard of Verreos and the deferential Northgate standard because Santa Clara County's emergency declaration was valid under either.
  • The trial court abused its discretion by taking judicial notice of the truth of disputed facts in the board's agenda materials, but the error was not prejudicial because the board's recited findings serve as prima facie evidence of the emergency.
  • The court declined to review the moot Elections Code challenges to the Measure A ballot question and impartial analysis, and affirmed the order denying the writ petition.

A California appeals court has upheld Santa Clara County's decision to put a sales-tax increase before voters at a November 2025 special election, holding that the state constitution's exception for "cases of emergency" covers a budget crisis caused by federal funding cuts.

A three-justice panel of the Court of Appeal for the Sixth Appellate District affirmed a trial judge's refusal to order the tax, Measure A, off the ballot. Justice Danner wrote the opinion, joined by Presiding Justice Greenwood and Justice Grover. The opinion was filed Sept. 23, 2026, and modified Oct. 16, when the panel denied rehearing.

The decision interprets Proposition 218, a 1996 voter initiative that requires local governments to submit any general tax, one imposed for general governmental purposes, to voters at a regularly scheduled general election. The initiative allows a special election only "in cases of emergency declared by a unanimous vote of the governing body." The panel held that the phrase has its ordinary meaning, with no limit on the kind of emergency, and that the county's declaration satisfied it.

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors adopted the emergency resolution and an urgency ordinance at a special meeting on Aug. 7, 2025. The board found that H.R. 1, the federal law signed the previous month, imposed "significant and unprecedented cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program." It projected county revenue losses of about $500 million in fiscal year 2026-27, growing to $1 billion in fiscal 2027-28.

The board also found that the next regularly scheduled election for supervisors, on June 2, 2026, would come "nearly a year after the first provisions of H.R. 1 will be in effect." Measure A proposed a five-year, five-eighths-cent general sales tax, and county voters approved it on Nov. 4, 2025.

Four county electors, Brian Holtz, Dawn R. Davis, John Inks and Christopher Robell, sued before the election. They called the declaration a "legal fiction intended to circumvent the regular rule of law, including article XIII C." After three days of expedited hearings, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Carol W. Overton denied their petition for a writ of mandate, an order that would have directed officials to remove the measure from the ballot.

The election mooted the case, but both sides asked the appeals court to decide the emergency question anyway. The panel agreed because the meaning of the clause "involves an issue of broad public interest likely to recur."

The challengers urged the court to borrow narrower definitions from other laws, including a constitutional provision limited to governor-declared disasters such as fire, flood and earthquake. "Section 2's text contains no preference, distinction, or limitation as to the nature of the emergency, requiring only that it be declared by a unanimous vote of the local governing body," Justice Danner wrote.

The narrower definitions all predated Proposition 218, the panel noted, and courts presume that voters know existing law. "Were it the voters' intent to limit the grounds for an emergency, the text of Proposition 218 or its implementing legislation could easily have stated as much or cross-referenced a preexisting definition," the court wrote. The initiative's direction to construe it liberally to limit local revenue "does not narrow the meaning of the term" emergency, the court added.

Adopting a dictionary definition, the panel concluded that the clause refers "to cases of unforeseen circumstances or a combination of unforeseen circumstances that call for immediate action."

The challengers also cited Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, a 2026 U.S. Supreme Court decision, contending that an emergency must mean something narrower than "whatever a local government legislative body says it is." "As Santa Clara County voters indisputably were given the opportunity to vote on Measure A, the dangers of unchecked power identified in Learning Resources are absent," the court wrote.

The parties also disputed how closely courts should examine an emergency declaration. A 1976 decision, Verreos v. City and County of San Francisco, called for courts to decide for themselves whether an actual emergency existed. Later cases, including the 1984 decision Northgate Partnership v. City of Sacramento, deferred to the legislative body. The panel declined to choose, holding that the county's actions "were valid under either standard."

The challengers argued that other counties had not called tax elections over H.R. 1 and that Santa Clara County could have limited health services to lawful residents. "These arguments reflect disagreement with and criticism of the county's response to H.R. 1 from a policy perspective, but they do not demonstrate the legal insufficiency of the Board's actions," Justice Danner wrote.

The challengers won one procedural point. Judicial notice lets a court accept a matter as established without formal proof, and Judge Overton had used it to consider the contents of the board's Aug. 7 agenda packet "for evidentiary purposes." The panel held that "even when judicial notice of a document is proper, courts do not take judicial notice of the truth of disputable matters stated therein," and that the trial court abused its discretion. The error was harmless, the panel said, because courts treat the board's legislative findings as prima facie evidence.

The Oct. 16 order added a footnote rejecting any suggestion that the agenda materials and board members' statements "are themselves subject to deference as legislative facts."

The panel declined to review the challengers' claims that the ballot question and the county counsel's impartial analysis violated the Elections Code, the state law governing ballot materials. Those claims were moot, and the court said they required a fact-specific inquiry.

Jason A. Bezis represented the challengers. The county, its board and Registrar of Voters Matt Moreles were represented by County Counsel Tony LoPresti.

The appeals court affirmed the Aug. 29, 2025, order and judgment and awarded the county parties their costs on appeal. A separate lawsuit challenging Measure A's validity, brought by the Silicon Valley Taxpayers Association and others, remains pending in Santa Clara County Superior Court as a related case, according to the opinion.