{"id":480147,"date":"2026-09-30T05:24:07","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T05:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/480147\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T05:24:07","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T05:24:07","slug":"appeals-court-upholds-santa-clara-countys-measure-a-sales-tax-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/480147\/","title":{"rendered":"Appeals Court Upholds Santa Clara County&#8217;s Measure A Sales Tax Vote"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The California Court of Appeal has rejected a challenge to Santa Clara County\u2019s most recent increase to the county sales tax approved by voters in 2025, declining to review a lower court ruling against opponents who tried to block the November 2025 referendum that approved the sales tax.<\/p>\n<p>The appeals court, in a ruling published Sept. 23, concluded that the county Board of Supervisors\u2019 declaration of a fiscal emergency \u2013 used to justify the small sales tax increase \u2013 was \u201creasonable\u201d and that the board\u2019s decision to place Measure A on the Nov. 4 2025 election ballot was valid.<\/p>\n<p>The measure\u00a0 increased the county sales tax by five-eighths of a cent for every one dollar spent, raising roughly $330 million annually. The measure was approved by a 57% to 43% margin.<\/p>\n<p>Anticipating a loss of over $1 billion in funding within five years from President Trump\u2019s \u201cBig Beautiful Bill,\u201d county supervisors had declared an emergency to justify the temporary sales tax increase.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe conclude that the [Santa Clara County] board\u2019s determination of emergency was reasonable, and the resolution to place Measure A on the November 4 special election ballot was not invalid,\u201d the appeals court wrote, affirming an August 2025 order denying the petition to block the referendum \u2013 and added that the county is entitled to payment of court costs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Court of Appeal\u2019s decision affirms that the Board of Supervisors took appropriate action when it declared a fiscal and public health emergency and placed Measure A on the November 2025 ballot,\u201d County Executive James R. Williams and County Counsel Tony LoPresti said in a joint statement. \u201cWith this core legal question answered, the county is one step closer to ending meritless challenges that threaten the life-saving services our communities depend on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a major victory for the County of Santa Clara, for the residents who rely on the county for healthcare and other essential safety net services, and for the voters who overwhelmingly supported Measure A,\u201d\u00a0 the county officials said in the statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"author-bio\">Three decades of journalism experience, as a writer and editor with Gannett, Knight-Ridder and Lee newspapers, as a business journal editor and publisher and as a weekly newspaper editor in Scotts Valley and Gilroy; with the Weeklys group since 2017. Recipient of several first-place writing and editing awards, California News Publishers Association.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The California Court of Appeal has rejected a challenge to Santa Clara County\u2019s most recent increase to the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[78445,14584,6647,88,90,89,14533],"class_list":["post-480147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-california-court-of-appeal","tag-county-executive-james-williams","tag-measure-a","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-santa-clara-county-board-of-supervisors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}