Governor Schwarzenegger used his line-item veto power to eliminate $150 million in tax rebates to low-income elderly and disabled renters. This was the governor's single biggest line-item veto in the budget, eliminating all funding for renters under the Senior Citizens Renters Tax Assistance program.

The program, in effect for decades, made senior and disabled renters who earn less than $44,096 eligible for up to $347.50 as a tax rebate. Last year, 467,000 tenant households received payments under this program. The average payment was $316 per recipient.

Low-income seniors rely on these funds and many had already filed applications for the tax rebate this year. With the governor's veto, the Franchise Tax Board now will not pay these claims.

--Tenants Together
California's Statewide Organization for Renters' Rights


Part One of the November 19, 2008, rally is a four-minute QT movie. 56MB. Parts Two & Three are down below the stills.

Copy the following to embed the movie into another web page: <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="388" data="http://www.indybay.org/js/flowplayer/FlowPlayer.swf"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.indybay.org/js/flowplayer/FlowPlayer.swf" /> <param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#000000" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> <param name="flashvars" value="config={videoFile:'http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2008/12/04/081119rentersrebatept1.mov_preview_.flv',splashImageFile:'http://www.indybay.org/im/play-button-328x240.jpg',loop:false,autoPlay:false,autoBuffering:false,bufferLength:5,initialScale:'fit'}" /> <p>Your browser is not able to display this multimedia content.</p></object>

download video: 081119rentersrebatept1.mov (56.4MB)