Will a majority vote be enough to keep the Chargers in San Diego?

SAN DIEGO — The new downtown stadium plan for the San Diego Chargers is almost certain to fail at the ballot box here on Tuesday, according to multiple polls.

The bigger question is by how much.

To win on Election Day, the team needs two-thirds approval from San Diego voters.  Polling data indicates the Chargers will be fortunate to get more than 50%.

But that still could count for something, maybe even everything, in terms of whether the team stays in San Diego or relocates to Los Angeles.

“If they don’t achieve a supermajority, at least achieving a majority sends a strong message,” said Marc Ganis, a sports consultant who has worked with NFL owners.

Ballot Measure C effectively asks voters whether the city’s hotel room tax should increase from 12.5% to 16.5%, with the proceeds helping fund a new $1.8 billion NFL stadium and convention center.  Under current California law, it needs two-thirds approval because it would be a tax hike for a specific purpose.

If it gets considerably less than 50%, team owner Dean Spanos could take that as his cue to move to Los Angeles, where he has an optional deal to share a lucrative new stadium with the Los Angeles Rams.

“If we lose the team, it will be an indelible stain on this city that we’ll never recover from,” Spanos adviser Fred Maas told USA TODAY Sports.

On the other hand, if Measure C fails to reach two-thirds but at least gets a simple majority of more than 50%, a case could be made that the people have spoken: They want the team to stay, and they want a new stadium. They just can’t get it with a tax increase like this, at least not yet. Sometime in the next two years, the state Supreme Court could remove the two-thirds threshold for citizens' measures like this.

Without two-thirds approval on Tuesday, Spanos still would have to decide if there’s another way to make it work in San Diego, besides having to play indefinitely in Qualcomm Stadium, which opened in 1967 and is one of the worst stadiums in the NFL.

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It could be another tough call. And the clock is ticking.

If he doesn’t get two-thirds approval, Spanos has until Jan. 15 to decide whether to take the deal in L.A. — a deadline that could be extended but might not.

“There’s been a lot of talk and speculation about what is a Plan B and what happens under a variety of scenarios,” Maas said. “The truth is, who knows? It’s certainly one off ramp if it’s less than 50%. It may be another off ramp if it’s 51%. It may be another off ramp if it’s 60 or 65%. Who knows? What Dean has said is `Look, it’s going to tell me a lot about how we’ve come along as a community and where things are.’”

For Spanos, it might be hard to walk away from majority support in San Diego and instead start from scratch in L.A. The problem for him is that a simple majority vote still doesn’t solve his situation in San Diego, the Chargers’ home since 1961.

For more than a decade, the Chargers have been trying to replace city-owned Qualcomm Stadium with something much more modern and lucrative. The team has said it needs public funding to help build a new NFL stadium in San Diego, unlike in Los Angeles, where the size and corporate wealth of the market make public funding unnecessary. If approved by two-thirds of voters, Measure C would fund $1.15 billion of the project’s cost, with the Chargers and NFL providing $650 million.

If it fails by any margin, the team has no clear or certain path to pay for any other new stadium plan in San Diego.

Money from the city’s general fund might be a stretch.  The city council guards that, and several of its members have opposed Measure C, saying it’s a bad deal for taxpayers.  Majority approval for Measure C might not carry much influence with the city council for one simple reason:  Those voters were voting to tax tourists staying in San Diego hotels, not to take other city money or assets.

“I think (the council) would be open to some type of support” for an alternative stadium plan, San Diego City Councilman Chris Cate told USA TODAY Sports. It just might not be what the Chargers want.

“It has to be some type of creative deal,” said Cate, who opposes Measure C. “And it may not be the most extravagant thing in the world, but at least something that would work for all parties and allow for something that is not just in the best interest of the team but the taxpayers.”

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If Measure C fails, that leaves just two certain options and three big uncertain variables.

The certain options:

• Los Angeles: The Chargers already have the NFL’s approval to relocate to Los Angeles, and the franchise could become more valuable there than here over time, according to projections by Vanderbilt sports economist John Vrooman. The Rams’ new $2.6 billion stadium is scheduled to open in 2019. As a tenant in that stadium, Chargers generally would make what they earn there on game days while also contributing to the stadium’s debt payments.
• San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium: The team’s lease there expires after the 2020 season, and if the Chargers get a majority vote on Measure C, perhaps that gives them the political capital to negotiate more favorable terms in a new lease to stay there, including possible refurbishments.

The big uncertain variables:

• The Oakland Raiders: If the Chargers don’t take the L.A. option by Jan. 15, the Raiders could take that option instead, leaving the Chargers with even less leverage in San Diego. But Spanos might get more time to decide on L.A. -- and work on a solution in San Diego — if the Raiders instead continue their pursuit of a new stadium in Las Vegas. The Raiders still have hurdles to scale to get to Vegas, including approval from 24 of 32 NFL owners.
• The California Supreme Court: In a pending, unrelated case, the court could lower the two-thirds threshold for tax hikes proposed by citizens’ initiatives, possibly decreasing it to a simple majority vote. But that ruling might not come for another year or two. In August, the court rejected the city of San Diego’s request to expedite the decision. The Chargers are still boosting the cause to lower the threshold and recently requested permission from the court to file an amicus brief in the pending case, which could help influence the court’s ruling.
  If the court eventually lowers the threshold, the ruling might not apply retroactively to Measure C, but the Chargers at least could try again in a new election and need only a simple majority. They also could undertake another potentially long process: a lawsuit to argue this election only required a simple majority.
  "The rules on retroactivity are very complex, but I cannot imagine a Supreme Court decision would undo votes occurring in earlier elections," said Rick Hasen, a law professor and election law expert at the University of California, Irvine.
• Measure D: This also is on the ballot in San Diego Tuesday. It authorizes a new NFL stadium in San Diego but doesn’t pay for it, leading to more stadium funding questions if it succeeds. It’s also been disputed whether this measure requires approval by two-thirds of voters or only a simple majority — a question that could take years to decide in court.
  For the Chargers, a simple majority is still key. 
  Getting more than 50% of the vote “is a very important step,” Ganis said. “The next question is: Is there a way for more time in San Diego?”

Follow sports reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. E-mail: bschrotenb@usatoday.com

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