What are the politics of Prop 13 repeal? It seems disingenuous for progressives and liberals to give conservatives of the 70s all the blame for the existence of Prop 13 when there is no blue wave in CA pressing for repeal. Granted, the politics are not symmetrical, but I think Ds in CA deserve to own a piece of this.
It’s structurally designed to be unrepealable; politically, it doesn’t align with either side of the partisan divide in a meaningful sense.
Prop 13 was a ballot prop, which is to say an amendment to the state constitution passed by statewide plebiscite. In California, the legislature can’t directly amend or repeal something like prop 13 - it requires another ballot measure. Last time anyone took a run a reform was … 2016, maybe? It was a ballot measure that would have partially repealed prop 13, but only for commercial properties.
IIRC, this was mostly driven by education advocates - the increased revenue was anticipated to go towards education. All the usual suspects from amongst urbanist policymaking supported as well. Obv, the ballot did not succeed. The no campaign successfully positioned the partial reform as a first step towards full repeal which was enough to scare homeowners.
Money for the no campaign came from every corporate property owner who would have seen an increase in their rates. The no side was also supported by the realators who, at least in California, are anti-development and anti-property tax.
Without getting into a full anthropological treatment of why real estate agents are the way they are, I’ll say that they’re a good example of how land use in CA defy partisan coding. So, for as many criticisms as I have of progressive governance in California, the issue of prop 13 isn’t really profs complaining about conservatives as much as it is the present complaining about the past - and doing so in an institutional context where past decisions require massive activation energy to overcome.
As a CA native, let me tell you, the politics are messy and there are strange bedfellows compared to the normal alliances. There is an impending disruption to the Prop 13 stasis, however.
The first component is Prop 19, which mostly revoked the ability of property owners to pass their property tax basis onto their beneficiaries. (The main exception is if the beneficiary lives in the property as their main home.) The ad campaign for this ballot measure involved a picture of a white woman who looked like Mrs Howell from Gilligan’s Island holding a poodle with a blinged-out collar.
The second component is the immense Baby Boomer generation who own a disproportionate amount of housing. They are beginning the process of dying/moving into assisted living.
The result will be a massive amount of property transfers, that will likely result in a lot of 3rd party sales, as the appeal of converting mom’s house to a rental becomes less appealing when the property taxes jump to market rate vs the old system where the beneficiaries kept mom’s low property taxes.
What are the politics of Prop 13 repeal? It seems disingenuous for progressives and liberals to give conservatives of the 70s all the blame for the existence of Prop 13 when there is no blue wave in CA pressing for repeal. Granted, the politics are not symmetrical, but I think Ds in CA deserve to own a piece of this.
It’s structurally designed to be unrepealable; politically, it doesn’t align with either side of the partisan divide in a meaningful sense.
Prop 13 was a ballot prop, which is to say an amendment to the state constitution passed by statewide plebiscite. In California, the legislature can’t directly amend or repeal something like prop 13 - it requires another ballot measure. Last time anyone took a run a reform was … 2016, maybe? It was a ballot measure that would have partially repealed prop 13, but only for commercial properties.
IIRC, this was mostly driven by education advocates - the increased revenue was anticipated to go towards education. All the usual suspects from amongst urbanist policymaking supported as well. Obv, the ballot did not succeed. The no campaign successfully positioned the partial reform as a first step towards full repeal which was enough to scare homeowners.
Money for the no campaign came from every corporate property owner who would have seen an increase in their rates. The no side was also supported by the realators who, at least in California, are anti-development and anti-property tax.
Without getting into a full anthropological treatment of why real estate agents are the way they are, I’ll say that they’re a good example of how land use in CA defy partisan coding. So, for as many criticisms as I have of progressive governance in California, the issue of prop 13 isn’t really profs complaining about conservatives as much as it is the present complaining about the past - and doing so in an institutional context where past decisions require massive activation energy to overcome.
As a CA native, let me tell you, the politics are messy and there are strange bedfellows compared to the normal alliances. There is an impending disruption to the Prop 13 stasis, however.
The first component is Prop 19, which mostly revoked the ability of property owners to pass their property tax basis onto their beneficiaries. (The main exception is if the beneficiary lives in the property as their main home.) The ad campaign for this ballot measure involved a picture of a white woman who looked like Mrs Howell from Gilligan’s Island holding a poodle with a blinged-out collar.
The second component is the immense Baby Boomer generation who own a disproportionate amount of housing. They are beginning the process of dying/moving into assisted living.
The result will be a massive amount of property transfers, that will likely result in a lot of 3rd party sales, as the appeal of converting mom’s house to a rental becomes less appealing when the property taxes jump to market rate vs the old system where the beneficiaries kept mom’s low property taxes.