Constitutional tax limits at the state level: an overview and selected case studies

The passage of the Jarvis-Gann amendment (Proposition 13) in California in June 1978 focused widespread attention on constitutional constraints on government's power to tax. In addition, Proposition 13, along with the political events that led up to the inception of this particular amendment and subsequent amendments in other states, reversed the traditional negative attitude concerning constraints upon government implicitly expounded by many scholars and public servants. This dissertation presents an overview of constitutional tax limits at the state level in the United States and examines the constitutional evolution of four selected states. The methodology employed is essentially historical and comparative.

This study reveals that constitutional tax limits do indeed constrain government although they have been often used for purposes other than strictly limiting the power to tax. The evidence presented indicates that the potency of constitutional tax limits was recognized as early as the formation of the United States and that at the state level the evolutionary experience of constitutional tax limits is quite rich.

A significant finding of this study is that the methods that are available to amend state constitutions play an important role in the evolutionary process of constitutional change. This is the feature that distinguishes the 1978 California experience from earlier attempts to limit government's taxing powers found in American history. The historical accounts suggest that representative democracy does not always yield socially desired outcomes and that the citizen initiative, a form of direct democracy, may provide a workable means of circumventing many problems associated with representative democracy.