Young at Heart (of Lawsuit Challenging Prop 13)

Proposition 13 of 1978 - the brainchild of Howard Jarvis (at right) and Paul Gann - drastically cut and limited localproperty taxes and imposed a two-thirds vote rule in the legislature for taxincreases.  Various court cases havechallenged it over the years.  However,UCLA’s former chancellor, Charles Young, is part of a lawsuit to overturn it on(state) constitutional grounds. Obviously, if that were to occur, it would have a major impact on fiscalaffairs of state and local government in California.  It would surely affect the UC budget.  From Mother Jones:

Back when Proposition8 — the anti-gay marriage initiative — was in court, one of the arguments madeagainst it was that it represented a fundamental revision to the Californiaconstitution, not a mere amendment. As such, it should have required two-thirdsapproval from both houses of the legislature plus a majority of the public.  Gay rights supporters lost that argument, butCharles Young, the former chancellor ofUCLA, had a brainstorm. Maybe Prop 8 wasn't a fundamental revision, but howabout Proposition 13?

Passed at a time whenproperty taxes were sharply on the rise and California was running a surplus,Proposition 13 limited property taxes to 1% of a property's value andrestricted the annual increases on assessed values. ... But Proposition 13 alsorequired that "any change in state statute which results in a taxpayerpaying a higher tax" must be approved by two-thirds of both houses of theLegislature.

That language has hada profound impact on the power of the executive and the Legislature. The powerthat it constrains — the authority to raise public funds — is among the mostfundamental of government. And the requirement gives more weight to somelegislators — and, by extension, their constituents. As the lawsuit notes,"legislators opposing a tax increase are given the functional equivalentof more votes than those legislators who favor such proposals." …

Full article at http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/12/proposition-13-goes-court

Howard Jarvis - long dead - would surely be mad as Hell if he knew about the lawsuit.  He did have a brief movie career after Prop 13 passed.  You may have seen him in Airplane in which he had less success in getting a taxi at LAX than with his ballot measure: