California’s Tax Aversion Complicates Budget

OAKLAND, Calif. — For nearly two months, Gov. Jerry Brown has been immersed in a furious effort to win the support of the Legislature for his proposal to close a $26.6 billion budget gap with spending cuts and by asking voters to approve $12 billion in taxes in a special election this June.

Yet even if Mr. Brown rallies the Legislature behind the plan in the coming weeks — no small matter, given that he needs the support of two-thirds of lawmakers to put a tax measure on the ballot — the fight in Sacramento might prove to be the easy part.

Mr. Brown would then face the challenge of persuading voters to support extensions of sales, personal and vehicle registration taxes in a national environment where hostility to taxes is soaring, and in a state that, no matter its propensity for electing Democrats, has repeatedly rejected tax initiatives. And one of the major national antitax advocates — Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform — has intervened, pressuring Republicans here not to give Mr. Brown the votes to put the measure on the ballot, and pledging to make certain voters defeat it if they do.

The stakes are high, not only for the future of a state that has been under fiscal siege for three years — without the tax increases, Mr. Brown and lawmakers would have to make $26.6 billion in cuts — but for Mr. Brown’s governorship as well.

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