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By Jon Coupal
More than 42 years ago, California voters overwhelmingly enacted Proposition 13 in response to out-of-control property taxes.
Even with the passage of time, Prop. 13 remains very popular among citizens of all political stripes.
Nonetheless, many politicians and bureaucrats hate Prop. 13 because it prevents them from taking unlimited cash from the taxpaying public.
In response to Prop. 13’s passage, these tax-and-spend interests retaliated by trying to create loopholes in Prop. 13 to bypass voter-approved taxpayer protections and provisions enforcing more government accountability. This has necessitated additional taxpayer protection laws to close these loopholes via more recent initiatives such as Proposition 218 (1996), also known as the Right to Vote on Taxes Act, and Proposition 26 (2010) which sought to stop taxes from escaping limitation by calling them “fees.”
In this tug of war between taxpayers and government interests, the latter has been aided by an increasingly progressive California judiciary which, in a number of recent decisions, demonstrates open hostility to taxpayers. As just one example, Prop. 13’s long-standing requirement that a local special tax receive a two-thirds vote of the electorate has been virtually destroyed by the infamous Upland decision which gave tax-and-spend interests a template on how to impose new taxes that, for 40 years, were illegal.
To read the entire column, please click here.
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