Free Republic

No single politician is going to change Proposition 13, the iconic 1978 initiative that slashed property taxes, anytime soon. It's easy to understand why. A Field Poll last September showed that 34 years after its passage, voters by a ratio of more than 2-to-1, 63 percent to 29 percent, support Proposition 13. However, support narrows when the question is limited to altering commercial property taxes. Starting today, a handful of political leaders and advocates are reopening a conversation about aspects of the system of assessing property taxes on businesses. That's an important step. This coming November, Gov. Jerry Brown will...

That sizzle you hear today may come from Room 126 in the Capitol, where elected leaders and tax experts will touch the third rail of California politics, Proposition 13. The Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee will hold a 1:30 p.m. oversight hearing examining whether the state should tighten rules defining when businesses must have their property reassessed. Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, believes businesses take advantage of loopholes to save hundreds of millions of dollars. He is pursuing legislation, Assembly Bill 448, that would trigger more frequent reassessments of commercial property. Besides Ammiano, others scheduled to testify include Los Angeles...

Proposition 13, which revolutionized government financing in California by slashing property taxes and erecting new barriers to other state and local tax increases, was upheld by the state Supreme Court soon after it passed in 1978, seemingly ending all questions about its legality. But a team of lawyers headed by a former federal appeals court judge has sued to overturn a crucial provision of Prop. 13 - the requirement of a two-thirds legislative vote to raise state taxes. The lawyers argue that the two-thirds requirement has been undermined by more recent decisions of the state's high court. In particular, they...

Occasional rumblings around the Capitol about changing Proposition 13 aren't likely to amount to much anytime soon: The landmark tax-limiting measure is about as widely popular today as when it passed in 1978, according to a new Field Poll. By a greater than 2-to-1 ratio, with 63 percent support, California voters would endorse the measure if it were up for a vote again today, according to the poll. "It's still the third rail of California politics," poll director Mark DiCamillo said. "It's really an untouchable. Tinkering with Proposition 13 would probably be done at a politician's own peril." Approved by...

Aug. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa proposed dismantling California’s Proposition 13, which helped begin a nationwide anti-tax movement, in favor of a “grand bargain” that would boost levies on business property. The Democrat who leads California’s largest city called on Governor Jerry Brown not to shrink from making sweeping changes in state tax laws that Villaraigosa, 58, said could produce as much as $36 billion a year in new revenue. Villaraigosa urged the removal of Proposition 13’s limits on commercial-property assessments while retaining its cap for homes. The mayor said boosting tax revenue in the most-populous state...

California: Taking a break from leading his city down the path of economic decline, the mayor of Los Angeles lectures the state on how to squeeze more tax revenue out of business. Given his track record, Antonio Villaraigosa hardly seems the one to give advice on how to get California moving again. His city, where he's been chief executive for six years, has been a drag on the state. Its jobless rate (13.9% in 2010) puts it at No. 44 worst among the nation's 50 largest cities. But to this mayor, leading a once-booming city deeper into decline must be...

In what could be an initial foray into statewide politics, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called Tuesday for a renewal of progressive politics in California in the nation, including an overhaul of the state's iconic limit on property taxes, Proposition 13. "Progressives have to start thinking - and acting - big again," Villaraigosa declared in prepared remarks for the Sacramento Press Club, to counteract anti-tax and anti-government drives by the Tea Party and other conservative blocs. "If the Tea Party in Washington and their counterparts here in Sacramento are intent on pitching jobs overboard in the mindless pursuit of ideology...

Gov. Jerry Brown hinted Thursday that if the budget talks with Republicans break down, the initiative fight that would follow would not be limited to Brown's plans to raise sales, vehicle and income taxes. He said he expects labor groups to pursue changes to Proposition 13, tweaking the current caps on commercial property taxes, if no bipartisan deal can be reached. "I would expect there will be efforts to accelerate the reassessment of commercial property tax," Brown said. During his remarks to about 250 apartment owners and developers at the Moscone Center on Thursday, he acknowledged some of his failures...

Today, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association blasted the phony budget proposed by the Democrat majority in the legislature. ... (They use)illegal maneuvers and gimmicks: a CALFire surcharge on home insurance policies is illegal; stealing of $1 billion from California’s First Five funds is illegal; the $1.2 billion .. from the sale of State office buildings has already been determined to be illegal. “If self-serving lawmakers attempt to circumvent Prop. 13 and the will of the people,” said Coupal, “We will see them in court.”

History should record the late 1970s as an era of pivotal socioeconomic change in California – a new wave of inter- national migration, a shift from an industrial to a post-industrial economy, and a new baby boom. Political events also abounded, topped by passage of Proposition 13 but including collective bargaining for public employees, expansion of mail voting, a decline in major-party registration, and the eruption of crime as a powerful issue. By happenstance, Jerry Brown was governor as this socioeconomic tsunami crashed into California and played a central role in its political aspects. The crime issue was especially vexing...

Unemployment is rising, the federal government is broke, and so are many of the states. Now more than ever America needs its various governments to exercise restraint, and to scale-back on spending. And in the midst of this environment a stunning proposal has emerged in the nearly insolvent state of California: a third income tax. The proposal is actually worse than a mere “additional” income tax – and I’ll explain this in a moment. First let’s look at the “other two” income taxes. For the record, if you’re an American and you work and you earn personal income, your U.S....

"Hi, I’m California, And I’m Addicted to Spending…"What a magnificent confession this would be, if only we could hear it collectively from our 31st state. Imagine -California emerges from its’ state of denial, and admits that it is addicted to government spending. And then, after acknowledging its’ addiction, envision the government of California coming to believe that a power greater than itself (the private sector) could restore its’ sanity, and then turning itself over to the care of that greater power, and, in so doing, checking itself into “rehab.” Psychobabble and twelve-step metaphors can only go so far. But in...

This is must see. PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT: JERRY BROWN ON CNN 1992: "You run for office and, oh, the assumption is, I know what to do. You don't. I didn't have a plan for California. You say you're going to lower taxes, you say you're going to put people to work, you're going to improve the schools, you're going to stop crime. Crime is up, schools are worse, taxes are higher, I mean be real." Here is a direct link to the YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIlzYD4tk78

California Dreamin’ By Eric Fry 10/25/10 Laguna Beach, California – California’s Napa Valley gets the headlines, the wine-tasting awards and the black-tie charity dinners…California’s “Emerald Triangle” gets the cash. That’s right, the Golden State’s marijuana crop generates about $14 billion in revenue each year, and most of that revenue flows into the three main cannabis-growing counties of Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity — aka, the Emerald Triangle. $14 billion may not seem like much, as it is roughly the same sum as the bonus pool at Goldman Sachs. On the other hand, $14 billion is larger than the GDP of Iceland,...

n the wake of Chip Hanlon's post about Carly Fiorina arguing in 2000 for passage of Prop. 26 -- which would have lowered the threshold for passing local school bonds from a two-thirds to a simple majority, and which lost 51.3% to 48.7% -- the Fiorina campaign sent us this response from spokeswoman Julie Soderlund: “Carly has said many times before that she’s going to run on her record, not away from it. Back in 2000, along with figures like Pete Wilson, she saw merit in enabling localities to vote for school construction bonds and only school construction bonds, in...

The Truth on Carly's Prop 13 Claim Carly Fiorina directly attacked a cornerstone of California's conservative movement -- and one of the few institutional protections California's property owners enjoy. In short, she attacked Proposition 13. And there's proof. Below, I'm appending a rather interesting little op-ed from the March 2nd, 2000, San Jose Mercury-News. It's by one Carly Fiorina and John Doerr (then as now a venture capitalist and partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers), and it enthusiastically endorses California's Proposition 26 of 2000. What was 2000's California Proposition 26? In brief, it was an attack on the provisions...

This post will likely be very cut-and-dry to California conservatives. Central to most GOP voters here is Prop 13, which capped property taxes at 1% of the value of a property, but even it allows for taxes to be raised beyond that level-- but only with a 2/3 vote of the people. For years, liberal spendthrifts and RINOs alike have sought to undermine this supermajority protection, which has arguably been the one thing that prevented this state from having been driven into a no-growth, overtaxed ditch long ago-- the one we maybe headed for, anyway. So, in 2000, a Prop...

On the Propositions: Prop. 13. Seismic Retrofits. YES: Earthquake proofing your house shouldn’t trigger a tax increase until you’re ready to sell. Any questions? Prop. 14. Distorted Primary. NO: This was the result of the corrupt deal for the tax increase engineered by Abel Maldonado that included this measure to by-pass party primaries in a manner Maldonado believed would enhance his future election prospects. Instead of voters of each party putting their best candidate forward, this jerry-rigged system is designed to disguise the difference between the parties and force those pesky third parties off the general election ballot entirely. Prop....

With California mired in a budget crisis, some lawmakers are eyeing revisions to Proposition 13, the state's landmark law limiting property-tax increases, considered the untouchable third rail of California politics.Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, is sponsoring legislation that he said would stop commercial property owners from evading higher taxes when businesses change hands, a practice that he said deprives cash-strapped cities and counties of hundreds of millions of dollars."There's a loophole in the law, and it's morally incumbent upon us to close it ... so when businesses change ownership, there's no game-playing," Ammiano said Monday. His bill, AB2492, specifies when...

Frustration with a dysfunctional California government has spurred a movement to have the people, by initiative, call a state constitutional convention to rewrite the state's basic laws. But not all the laws. Advocates of the constitutional convention initiative hope to reduce opposition to the measure by declaring Proposition 13 off-limits from convention delegates' deliberations. Prop. 13 should not be taken off the table if and when a constitutional convention is called. How can it be, when the groundbreaking property tax reform measure is the central piece of the whole state and local governmental budget discussion? How many times has Prop....