Can Mayor Karen Bass Suspend Measure ULA to Help LA Rebuild?

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has apparently grown cool toward Measure ULA.

The mayor said there’s cause to temporarily suspend the city’s two-year-old “Mansion Tax” and might try to do so herself, if she can find a way.

“Maybe temporarily — we’re looking into that,” Bass told a Breitbart reporter in a press conference last Tuesday. “There’s two schools of thought. One is, that can’t happen. It has to go back to voters. And the other is that it might be able to happen with action from the council and the mayor’s office.

“We’re having that investigated through our attorneys right now,” Bass said.

She hasn’t spoken further about the topic since.

Zach Seidl, the mayor’s communications deputy, didn’t answer specific questions from The Real Deal about Bass’ plans, but said in a statement to The Real Deal Friday, “we are going to look at every possible option to support fire survivors and accelerate recovery.”

It’s unclear how the mayor or City Council could defy the results of the local ballot measure, which went into effect in 2023 and imposes a 4 percent tax on property sales above $5 million and a 5.5 percent tax on sales over $10 million.

The City Charter states that ballot measures can be overturned by voters in a subsequent election or by amending the City Charter to supersede the ballot measure.

A spokesperson for L.A. City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Measure ULA aimed to raise up to $1.1 billion in tax revenue to fight homelessness and build affordable housing. It has so far fallen far short of that goal, raising about $300 million in its first year on the books.

Fewer than 5 percent of deals meet the threshold to be subject to the tax, but historically they account for about 40 percent the city’s total property tax revenue, according to an analysis by Mott Smith, a founding member of the Council of Infill Builders and adjunct professor at the USC Price School of Public Policy.

During her 2022 campaign for mayor, Bass never took a stance supporting the ballot measure, but she applauded a court ruling dismissing a lawsuit against it the following year.

And later that year the former deputy mayor for housing took some heat saying real estate investors were having “a bit of a temper tantrum” about the transfer tax, as TRD previously reported.