The only thing I dislike about voting in CA is the insane number of ballot propositions. I got through them all. Now all I have to do is drop my ballot into a ballot drop box. #Ivoted.
@sfleetucker Early-20th-century populism did a number on California's constitution. Not only can you put an initiative on the ballot with a smidgen of signatures, that initiative can, with a simple majority, *amend the state constitution.*
I believe this is known in the constitution trade as "leaving the cordless Sawzall charged up in the kids' room."
@ImagineThat and the worst one was prop 13. It's made our tax base much less stable.
@sfleetucker Prop 13 is probably the worst to survive judicial review. There was one in the 1960s that restored home sellers' "right" to discriminate on basis of race, and 2008's Prop 8. I think they could go toe-to-toe with Prop 13 if the courts hadn't struck them down.
Prop 13 addressed a real problem: soaring property values meant soaring property taxes for folks who couldn't pay them and couldn't move. The legislature didn't fix it, so the Pee-Pull took a meat ax to the tax code.
@ImagineThat So the problem was real, but the solution has consequences now. Especially in large urban areas. There should be a cap, but it's too low for a state with our kind of growth. I'd argue that the right answer is more about controlling it for home owners over 65 or disabled, and letting it move more for those of us who are still employed. We'd have a more stable overall tax base because property lags the market drops.
@sfleetucker There were plenty of able-bodied people in their 40s and 50s who couldn't keep up. When the economy's good, wages rise but CA property values skyrocket.
Our economy reduces everything to $, even a home, so it's perfectly rational for it tell people to just find a cheaper home if they can't pay taxes that have gone up by an order of magnitude while their incomes have increased little if at all.
The only real solution I can see is to factor in income: pay as you can.
@ImagineThat And while it's supposed to be populist, it's exploited by the extremely wealthy who can afford to pay to have the petition signers work crowds for suckers.