[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Peter Schrag

Like Howard Jarvis 30 years ago, the latter-day defenders of Proposition 13 talk almost entirely about the blessings that the cap on property taxes has bestowed on homeowners.

What they rarely mention – and with good reason – is the windfall that went to California corporations and the billions that has cost counties, cities and local schools.

The windfall was either an unintended consequence of the sloppily drafted homeowner rescue measure that Howard Jarvis and his sometime partner Paul Gann cooked up, or it was a slimy trick. Either way, it's long past time that the system by which California assesses large commercial property and the rate at which it's taxed are revised.

Currently, in the words of Lenny Goldberg of the liberal California Tax Reform Association, the system is "legally irrational." It's "more loophole than tax." It taxes competitors and landowners unfairly, promotes land speculation and sprawl and fails to tax the windfall in property values brought by public infrastructure investment and the increase in neighboring land values.

And because commercial property isn't taxed at its real value, the system doesn't encourage economically realistic use of land – it fails to encourage infill – and shifts a growing part of the tax burden to homeowners.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Robert Cruickshank

The 30th anniversary of Prop 13 has brought out a raft of commentary in the state media. This commentary tends to split on whether Prop 13 benefited or hurt the state - as if there is still any doubt that it was a disaster - but it rarely examines some of the underlying assumptions of Prop 13, and even more rarely does it explore the deep inequality it has enshrined into our state.

Much of this stems from a fundamental misunderstanding about what Prop 13 was and what it did. Voters convinced themselves it was a populist revolt against rising property taxes. They believe this so fervently that they act as if they willed it into existence.

In fact Prop 13 was an extremist attack on the very practice of state government by a group of far-right activists, with property taxes used as a convenient cover. Those who voted for - and who say they would vote for it again - still seem to believe its primary purpose was to protect homeowners, when its true goal was to destroy public services by starving government of revenue - otherwise why include the 2/3 rule? Why give commercial property the same protection as homeowners?

by Robert in Monterey [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Peter Schrag

Ever since 1984, when Scientific Games of Atlanta ponied up $2.3 million to persuade California voters that a lottery would be a great way to help schools, the California Lottery has been an unmitigated headache.

It's rarely raised more than 3 percent of the costs of K-12 education – and of late much less – although for many years a lot of voters thought the schools were well-fixed with the lottery proceeds and didn't need any more money. And it opened the door to the Indian casinos now plaguing communities from one end of California to the other.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's gimmicky proposal to pawn the whole deal to Wall Street for some quick upfront money thus may not be such a bad idea. It's part of yet another final Schwarzenegger solution to the state's chronic budget mess – although this time there are no promises to tear up the credit card.

The lottery deal, which would require the approval of the voters, isn't getting much enthusiasm from the school lobby: Beggars can't afford to spurn pennies. Given the likely fine print in the deal, the schools aren't sure they'll ever recoup all their meager lottery revenues. And in the end it will almost certainly put the state still deeper in hock.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Peter Schrag

Thirty years ago, when Howard Jarvis drove Proposition 13 to a lopsided victory at the California polls, the old curmudgeon expended a fair amount of invective trying to prove that he was a real populist and not just a running dog for the Los Angeles Apartment Owners Association.

He was in fact employed by the apartment owners and his campaign was based there. But his argument was borne out by the fact that his shrewd direct mail campaign generated many thousands of small contributions from elderly homeowners fearful that they'd lose those homes to escalating property taxes. Many became members of what's now the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

But if Jarvis was in fact a real populist, his successors at HJTA, sponsors of Proposition 98 on the June 3 ballot, have a much harder time making the case.

The measure, which promises to restrain governments' use of eminent domain, would also end rent control in the 11 California cities that have it – a few others have some renter protections — and prohibit it forever more. Its big bucks support comes primarily from apartment owner groups, the owners of mobile home parks, real estate associations, the Farm Bureau and from HJTA itself.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Peter Schrag

The new scores on the California English Language Development Test that students designated as English learners take each year are encouraging. But they don't mean much. They're driven largely by the number of English learners, most of them immigrants, who come into the state's schools each year and by the number who become proficient enough so that they're reclassified and are no longer counted.

But they're powerful evidence of the incredibly high-stakes task California schools have taken on – high stakes for all sorts of reasons. One-fourth of our students – 1.6 million – are classified as English learners. Another 18 percent are students whose primary language is also not English but who have been designated or redesignated as fluent English proficient.

That comes to roughly 43 percent of California's enrollment – 2.7 million of California's 6.3 million students – who start out speaking some other language. No school system on the globe has taken on a task of that magnitude or one tied to such huge political and social consequences for the future of its people.