Of course they can do it! Otherwise they wouldn't.
That's why taxes never have a limit. The bureaucrats keep increasing them because they can.
The courts aren't much help. Hell, in the last couple of decades the courts have invented some of the largest tax increases of all!
Ignorance is not new, and we get the government we deserve. Half the population of taxpayers don't remember what happened after Prop 13 passed overwhelmingly. The other half seem not to care. Or perhaps it is that increasingly the non-payers are outnumbering the payers, so naturally there is no reason whatsoever not to vote for further increases. It's free money!
Perhaps the clearest example is real estate taxes on property that for generations has paid for no services whatsoever. When, after 100 years, it is finally developed with new homes, each home proposed is taxed an amount which would have bought the entire lot and property 40 years ago!
Why? Bottom line is because they can. What is the reason given? To pay for existing and needed expansion of "infrastructure". So the new home owners get to pay at least twice.
And before Prop 13, everyone else in the immediate neighborhood had their Real Estate taxes doubled or tripled in the process. Because they could.
"Or perhaps it is that increasingly the non-payers are outnumbering the payers,...."
And there you have it.