Prop 13

Dan Weintraub at the Sacramento Bee provides a great summary of what Prop 13 did, and didn't do.

Thirty years ago today, California voters passed Prop 13. At the time, inflation was soaring, the president was losing popularity, and Jerry Brown was running for governor again. So nothing's changed.

The impact of the initiative, which limited property tax increases and required a two-thirds vote in the legislature for any tax increase, is still popular and still being debated. In general, descriptions of its impact are overblown. It's blamed for big declines in school and local government funding that exist only in fevered imaginations. But its impact on state politics and the structure of state government is undeniable. In general, Prop 13 has been a great distorter, separating constituencies and their funding, spawning an initiative industry that dominates politics in California and other Western states, and pushing California towads a volatile, income tax-based system that produces constant uncertainty and crisis. Prop 13 isn't solely to blame for the state's dysfunction, but it's a significant part of the problem.