The lawsuit filed Friday by former UCLA Chancellor Charles Young has all the appearance of an act of desperation on the part of spending interests. The basis of the lawsuit claims that Proposition 13 did not merely amend the constitution but revised it, which an initiative cannot do.
Where has Chancellor Young been these past 31 years? Why, all of a sudden, did he and his attorneys “discover” this constitutional flaw?
The fact is the California Supreme Court, the same court Young wants to take original jurisdiction over his lawsuit, addressed the argument that Proposition 13 was a constitutional revision in 1978.
In its ruling on a case brought by the Amador Valley School District and joined by many Prop 13 opponents, the court confirmed that an initiative may not “revise” California’s constitution. However, the court then said that Prop 13 did not amount to a revision.
In Amador, the court discussed the distinction between a revision and an amendment. Said the justices in the 6 to 1 ruling, a revision is a “substantial alteration of the entire constitution, rather than to a less extensive change in one or more of its provisions”.
The Court in the Amador case decided: “…the article XIII A (Prop 13) changes operate functionally within a relatively narrow range to accomplish a new system of taxation which may provide substantial tax relief for our citizens. We decline to hold that such a limited purpose cannot be achieved directly by the people through the initiative process.”
In a case the following year, the Court expanded on its reasoning about revision in the Amador case. “Furthermore, in Amador Valley, we cautioned that too strict a construction of the revision rule would in effect bar the people from ever achieving any local tax relief through the initiative process.”
Proposition 13 co-author Howard Jarvis was clearly on record that the supermajority vote in the legislature was intended to prevent the state from making up the property taxes saved by the Prop 13 cuts by raising a like amount of taxes through state action, thus assuring relief for taxpayers.
It’s unlikely that this Supreme Court will upend the precedent on constitutional revisions when this court recently tossed out the revision challenge to Proposition 8, the initiative banning gay marriage.
The Young lawsuit is intended to get around the will of the people by asking the justices to legislate from the bench.
Any attempt to do so would be highly transparent and raise a revolt amongst wary voters. The legislative two-thirds vote requirement to raise taxes was not only passed overwhelmingly 31 years ago, but reaffirmed, in a sense, by a similar electoral margin when the voters crushed an attempt to lower that two-thirds standard contained in a 2004 ballot initiative.
The people of California will not take kindly to a judicial override. If such a move were contemplated you can almost hear the folks over at the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association doing their best Dirty Harry imitation: “Go ahead, make my day.”