Proposition 13 Fever: How California's Tax Limitation Spread

Isaac William Martin

doi:10.5070/p2j301

Proposition 13 Fever: How California's Tax Limitation Spread

California Journal of Politics and Policy ◽

10.5070/p2j301 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 1-18 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Isaac William Martin

Keyword(s):

Proposition 13 ◽

Tax Limitation

Download Full-text

Howard Jarvis, Populist Entrepreneur: Reevaluating the Causes of Proposition 13

Social Science History ◽

10.1017/s0145553200018058 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 23 (2) ◽

pp. 173-210 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Daniel A. Smith

Keyword(s):

Property Tax ◽

Unintended Consequences ◽

Letters To The Editor ◽

Proposition 13 ◽

Primary Election ◽

Local Newspapers ◽

Tax Limitation ◽

Radio Programs ◽

Ballot Measure ◽

Opinion Polls

During the months immediately preceding California’s June 1978 primary election, Proposition 13, the fractious property tax ballot measure, received a dizzying amount of media attention. Newspaper columnists from California and around the country swapped partisan barbs, debating ad infinitum the initiative’s merits and faults. In public forums, political scientists and economists calculated and recalculated the measure’s possible effects and unintended consequences. Heated letters to the editor and sharp-edged political cartoons saturated the editorial pages of local newspapers. Opinion polls registered the public’s sentiment toward the measure on a weekly basis. Shrill advertisements touting either the necessity or the destructiveness of the proposition interrupted regularly scheduled television and radio programs. Indefatigable Howard Jarvis, the monomaniacal, septuagenarian leader of the tax limitation movement, was seemingly everywhere. By election day, the proponents and opponents of Prop 13 had spent over $2 million each on the measure (CFPPC 1988).

Download Full-text

Political Shirking – Proposition 13 vs. Proposition 8

Japanese Journal of Political Science ◽

10.1017/s1468109909003533 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 213-237

Author(s):

SEIJI FUJII

Keyword(s):

Local Governments ◽

Property Tax ◽

State Legislature ◽

Property Taxes ◽

The Political ◽

Proposition 13 ◽

Proposition 8 ◽

Political Market ◽

Tax Limitation ◽

Voter Initiative

AbstractThis paper considers the efficiency of the political market in the California State legislature. I analyzed the property tax limitation voter initiative, Proposition 13. I found that districts which supported Proposition 13 more strongly were more likely to oppose the incumbents regardless of whether the incumbents had the different preferences for property taxes from their districts. I also studied how legislators voted on the bills adopted after the passage of Proposition 13 to finance local governments. I found that legislators tended to follow the constituents’ will after they received the voters’ tax-cutting message expressed by the passage of Proposition 13.

Download Full-text