| Local option sales taxes for transportation have become an important source of transportation funding in the State of California. In some California counties, local option sales tax revenue is responsible for almost a third of the transportation funding available for programs and projects. This research focuses on why the state legislature devolved power and authority to the local level, specifically the county level, by allowing counties to place local option sales taxes before the voters. Contrary to what might, at first blush, be expected, government agencies or levels of government rarely agree to give up power, but the California legislature crafted a policy that did just that in the mid-1980s. From a theoretical standpoint, it is challenging to explain why the legislature chose to do this. Furthermore, it is challenging to explain why the legislature changed the way in which transportation is financed after the policy subsystem remained relatively unchanged for 60+ years. In addressing the aforementioned questions, transportation data, taxation data, existing public opinion polls (Field/California Polls), and an original survey of state legislators from the 1987 legislative session were collected for analysis. In addition to data collection, a detailed review of the bill file for S.B. 142, The Local Transportation Authority and Improvement Act of 1987, was conducted at the California State Archives in Sacramento, CA. Utilizing the "punctuated equilibrium" framework developed by Baumgartner and Jones (1993), this research documents how transportation system challenges, and ultimately the tax revolt and Proposition 13, raised attentiveness to the issue of transportation in California, producing a "punctuated equilibrium" in the transportation policy subsystem leading to the first substantive change in transportation finance since the 1920s. |
