Judge Rejects Challenge to Measure M Tax : Transportation: The ruling says levy needed only a simple, not a two-thirds, majority of votes.

An Orange County Superior Court judge on Friday rejected an effort to scuttle Measure M, the half-cent sales tax hike for transportation projects approved by voters in November.

In an eight-page opinion, Judge William W. Bedsworth refused to throw out the special transportation tax, which is expected to raise $3.1 billion during the next two decades to finance a multitude of freeway, road and rail improvements.

Opponents of the tax measure had argued that it should have required approval by a two-thirds majority of county voters for it to take effect, but the judge disagreed, saying that only a simple majority was needed. Measure M garnered 54.8% of the vote during a hotly contested election last year.

Officials with the three organizations that launched the legal battle against Measure M--Drivers for Highway Safety, Citizens Against Unfair Taxation and the Libertarian Central Committee of Orange County--were disappointed by the decision but remained confident that they can win on appeal.

“I can’t say I’m overjoyed,” said Bill Ward, a leader of Drivers for Highway Safety, which opposed Measure M because it would fund car-pool lanes and rail projects that the group feels are ineffective. “But we’re pretty determined. I’ll tell you this, they’re not going to wear us down.”

Measure M backers, meanwhile, said they were overjoyed by the news, but troubled that their foes seemed determined to push the legal challenge into a higher court.

“I’m ecstatic,” said Dana W. Reed, chairman of the Orange County Transportation Commission and a leader of the pro-Measure M campaign. “I hope now that these people who have been swatting at us will reflect on what they’re doing and realize that it’s over and let’s get on with building these transportation facilities we need so desperately.”

Mark Rosen, attorney for the anti-Measure M coalition, said he was not surprised by the decision.

“I’m disappointed, but it would have been a very courageous thing for a (Superior Court) trial judge to throw out Measure M,” Rosen said. “Don’t get me wrong. I think Judge Bedsworth is an excellent judge. But this is usually something typically only done by judges at the appellate level.”

Even before the case is decided, an appeal could undermine the county’s efforts to finance transportation projects in the next few months, Measure M supporters said. The measure went into effect April 1.

A lingering lawsuit would put “a cloud” over Measure M, meaning that the county might have to pay more in interest for bonds that are expected to be sold this summer to finance several construction jobs, Reed said.

Among those that could be slowed or scaled back, officials said, are the purchase of land to widen the Santa Ana Freeway through Anaheim, plans to expand the number of commuter trains running between Orange County and Los Angeles, and improvements to the El Toro ‘Y,’ the traffic-choked confluence of the San Diego and Santa Ana freeways.

“If they continue to harass us, then they have really gone beyond the bounds of fair play,” said Reed, who threatened to push for monetary sanctions against the opponents. “There’s no ambiguity in this judgment, no wiggle room. It says they’re wrong, period.”

The judge’s decision Friday marked the third legal setback for Measure M opponents in less than three months. In February, the state Supreme Court refused to hear the challenge. A month later, the 4th District Court of Appeal also declined to take on the case.

That put the legal battle in Bedsworth’s courtroom in the Orange County Courthouse in Santa Ana.

In his written opinion, Bedsworth ruled that the California Constitution and other provisions of state law barred him from taking steps to either block the special transportation tax or let it stand.

Aside from that procedural question, the judge declared that the challenge did not stand up on its merits. Bedsworth said he was “satisfied” that Measure M needed only a simple majority and not the two-thirds vote required under Proposition 13, the landmark 1978 property tax-reform initiative.

In addition, the judge ruled that Measure M did not violate statutes by mandating that the county’s auditor-controller should serve as chairman of a citizens’ oversight committee that will monitor spending on Measure M, nor in using the County Grand Jurors Assn. to winnow nominees for the oversight group.

While opponents of Measure M gear up to appeal Bedsworth’s ruling, attorneys on both sides of the issue are anxiously awaiting the outcome of a San Diego County case that could dramatically effect the fate of Orange County’s transportation tax.

That case, which revolves around challenges to a sales-tax hike passed by a simple majority in San Diego to help bolster law enforcement, is now before the state Supreme Court. The San Diego measure, which closely parallels Measure M in some respects, was thrown out by a Superior Court judge but restored on appeal.

The state Supreme Court has had the matter under consideration for months, and its decision, which is being monitored by civic officials up and down the state, looms as an important test of the ability of local governments to raise taxes by referendum.