Chargers' make-or-break stadium proposal cleared for November vote

SAN DIEGO — The San Diego Chargers have obtained enough valid signatures to qualify their new stadium proposal for the Nov. 8 election, the San Diego City Clerk confirmed Saturday.

After all the drama of the last seven months, the announcement marks a critical achievement for a franchise that tried to relocate to Los Angeles in January.

But now comes the hard part — convincing voters to raise taxes to pay for it.

If the measure fails, the Chargers still might leave for the Los Angeles market, where they have a back-up plan to share a swanky new stadium with the Los Angeles Rams.

"The entire Chargers organization is grateful to all of those who helped qualify our initiative for the November 2016 ballot," Chargers owner Dean Spanos said in a statement. "We gathered more than 110,000 signatures in less than six weeks, an extraordinary result that demonstrates the high level of community interest in a new multi-use stadium and convention center facility downtown. I would again like to thank all of those who signed the petition along with the fan groups, labor organizations, and businesses large and small that helped with our effort."

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To qualify the measure for the ballot, the team needed to get at least 66,447 valid voter signatures supporting the proposal - 10 percent of registered voters at the last city election. A committee funded by the Chargers last month submitted about 110,000 signatures for verification, and City Clerk Elizabeth Maland confirmed that the random sample results due Sunday projected that 78,964 were valid.

If the random sample results were insufficient, the team’s future in San Diego would have gotten even more complicated. The initiative could have died in that case. Or a full signature check could have been required, quite possibly without enough time to get it cleared for the Nov. 8 ballot.

WHAT'S NEXT?

The measure now goes to the San Diego City Council, which is expected to formally put the initiative on the ballot. It cannot reject it and block it from the ballot.

Voters would face this choice: Should they increase the hotel room tax to 16.5%, up from its current effective rate of 12.5%? The proceeds would help fund a $1.8 billion new downtown stadium and convention center, with $650 million provided by the Chargers and NFL.

It’s a long shot by most accounts right now. The initiative is expected to face significant opposition, including from hoteliers. Last year, the team presented polling data to the NFL that showed about 65% disapproval of public funding for a new stadium in San Diego, the team’s home since 1961.

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Fred Maas, the team’s special adviser on the stadium measure, told USA TODAY Sports in late June that the campaign would face inherent challenges.

"There’s kind of a natural bias and instinct with a big bloc of voters who are just opposed to any taxes and frankly opposed to anything that appears different or change," Maas said. "So overcoming that, educating people about a confusing ballot, making sure people hang in with you on a down-ballot issue and with the complexities of what the electorate is going to look like in a presidential campaign — all of those things make for a very complicated brew. But we’re just so grateful to the fans and folks who may not be season-ticket holders but just want to keep the team here because of community pride."

THE SUPERMAJORITY AND THE SUPREME COURT

To win in November, the team also might need to pull off the seemingly impossible task of reversing last year’s disapproval numbers and getting at least 66.7% of voters to approve it. That’s because two-thirds of voters are required to approve tax hikes for specific purposes in California — unless they get a speedy assist from the state Supreme Court.

In March, a state appellate court issued a ruling in a separate case that indicated citizens’ initiatives like this only required a simple majority of more than 50%, not two-thirds of voters as required when a tax hike is proposed by a government agency.

But then the state Supreme Court took up the case last month, effectively wiping out the appellate court ruling until the Supreme Court makes its decision. The Supreme Court conceivably could lower the threshold to a simple majority — or not.

The problem for the team is that such a decision might not come for many months, probably well after the election and after Jan. 15, when the Chargers are due to make a call on whether to join the Rams in Los Angeles.

San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said he would ask the Supreme Court to expedite the decision for the benefit of San Diego voters and even take jurisdiction of the matter to help settle it.

In the meantime, the stakes remain high not just for the Chargers but for the Oakland Raiders as well.

RELOCATION ROULETTE

If the Chargers lose the vote, they have no apparent Plan B in San Diego, except to play indefinitely at Qualcomm Stadium, which opened in 1967 and is considered one of the worst stadiums in the league along with Oakland’s Coliseum.

Likewise, the Raiders also are seeking a new stadium and get the right to join the Rams in Los Angeles if the Chargers let it expire or forfeit it.

In January, the Raiders and Chargers both applied to move to a jointly proposed stadium in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson, but were rejected by NFL owners, who instead approved the relocation of the Rams to a $2.6 billion stadium project in Inglewood, near the Los Angeles airport.

The owners gave the Chargers the first right to join the Rams in Inglewood, but team owner Dean Spanos first opted to go for what may be San Diego’s final shot at keeping the team after more than a decade of trying to get a new stadium here.

Unlike the Chargers, the Raiders have no viable new stadium proposal in play to remain in their current market. Team owner Mark Davis recently has pursued a new home in Las Vegas, pending approval of a suitable funding package there, as well as approval from NFL owners.

The Chargers already have NFL approval to move to Los Angeles, and if they do, it would mark another sad sports chapter for this sunny city. San Diego has never won the World Series, Super Bowl or NBA Finals. The city previously lost the NBA’s Rockets and Clippers to Houston and Los Angeles.

Voters now may help determine if the Chargers follow their lead.

Follow Brent Schrotenboer on Twitter @Schrotenboer. E-mail: bschrotenb@usatoday.com