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From http://www.caltax.org/member/digest/may98/may98-4.htm http://www.caltax.org/member/digest/may98/may98-4.htm Almost immediately after passage, the Californ
by erehweb 13y ago
From http://www.caltax.org/member/digest/may98/may98-4.htm http://www.caltax.org/member/digest/may98/may98-4.htm
Almost immediately after passage, the California Supreme Court sustained Proposition 13's constitutionality in the Amador case (Amador Valley Joint Union High School District v. State Board of Equalization. September 22, 1978). After a series of legal challenges in the 1980s, the issue of acquisition-value assessments reached the U.S. Supreme Court in Nordlinger v. Hahn. In a stunning 8-1 decision, the court in 1992 upheld California's acquisition-value system.
The court ruled that an acquisition-value system does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution because it rationally furthers a legitimate state interest. The court said, "The state legitimately can conclude that a new owner, at the point of purchasing his property, does not have the same reliance interest warranting protection against higher taxes as does an existing owner who is already saddled with his purchase and does not have the option of deciding not to buy his home if taxes become prohibitively high."
The court also opined that a state has a rational interest in neighborhood preservation, continuity and stability, and that Proposition 13's system of "locking in" lower tax assessments contributed to such preservation.
- DannyBee 13y agoFor the curious, because it doesn't affect a fundamental constitutional right, the equal protection challenge will get evaluated by the rational basis test. As long as it is rationally related to a legitimate government interest, it will be upheld.
- gojomo 13y agoIsn't equal protection, without regard to a superficial category like length-of-residency (which is itself highly entangled with age & race), a constitutional right?
- DannyBee 13y agoWhat it actually means is subject to much debate. Wikipedia surprisingly has reasonable coverage of this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause See tiered scrutiny.
- azernik 13y agoIn particular - age is not a suspect classification, so the strict scrutiny test does not apply.
- Crito 13y agoSuppose we throw the concept of a Sundown Town (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town) into the mix. It seems reasonable to me that laws or policies that favor people who have been residents of a town for a longer period of time could be used to preserve Sundown Towns. It's fairly easy to see how these policies would benefit those who seek de facto segregation.