Health care sales tax campaign under investigation

The state’s election watchdog agency, the Fair Political Practices Commissions, has launched an investigation into the campaign Santa Clara County officials led to convince voters to approve a half-cent sales tax increase last fall.

Specifically, the FPPC wants to know if county government fund were used on Measure A campaign mailers.

The FPPC said it opened the investigation based on complaints from the Silicon Valley Taxpayers Association and Libertarian Party of Santa Clara County. The two groups said the mailers amounted to “political propaganda,” and argues the mailers skirted election laws and aimed to scare voters into approving the sales tax increase.

An FPPC representative declined to comment on Wednesday, but the two anti-tax groups provided the news media with letters it had received from the FPPC that showed the investigation had begun.

(Read the letter.)

Measure A passed with 57% of the vote, raising the sales tax rate by 0.625% for five years.

The allegations concern mailers on official county letter that were sent to residents. The mailers didn’t explicitly endorse Measure A, but warned of life-threatening hospital closures and jeopardized health care access as a result of a budget crisis stemming from federal cuts. County officials placed Measure A on the ballot as a response to H.R. 1., the federal spending bill that tightens eligibility requirements for Medi-Cal, the federal health care program for the poor. With tighter eligibility rules, fewer people use Medi-Cal, thereby reducing the money going to government-run hospitals, including the hospitals run by Santa Clara County.

State law makes it illegal for the county to take sides in an election or spend money to promote a ballot measure. The two anti-tax groups said these mailers crossed the line. However, county leaders reject the complaint, arguing the mailers were purely informational and sent to all county residents, regardless of whether they were registered to vote.

While the tax was promoted as a way to help the county government’s hospitals, the county Board of Supervisors can use the money for any county purpose.