To the Biltmoro Hotel

With Proposition 13 on the ballot, suburban communities continued their revolt against the headquarters of big government in downtown Los Angeles and in Sacramento. In middle-income communities, actions to protest high property taxes became occasions to urge voters to support Proposition 13. In Glendale, more than seventy-five persons demonstrated with signs supporting Proposition 13. One elderly protester had been forced to sell her home because of high property taxes and found Howard Jarvis the perfect embodiment of her frustrations. "I'm all for Jarvis and I don't give a damn what happens to the system. I lived in Glendale for 40 years and I'm mad." The residents of Glendale and nearby communities—shouting, "Hey, hey, we won't pay," "Hey, hey, we can't pay," and "Taxation without representation is tyranny"—

marched to the branch office of the county assessor and dumped tea bags on the receptionist's desk.^[65]

On the Palos Verdes peninsula, the Citizens for Property Tax Relief (CPTR) took a somewhat different approach, providing speakers, consultants, and fact sheets for the campaign for Proposition 13. Every month CPTR wrote the newsletter "Tax Facts," which detailed the sharp increases in local government spending, the latest extravagant government purchases, and the unflattering excuses of politicians. "With the bullet items and the two- or three-liners, people will read it. And they found it devastating." CPTR also created files of registered voters and their occupations and then used word processors to generate customized letters "addressing the issue from their point of view. What it means to them and their shop, so you can be lethal. . . . To a mechanic you say, Do you realize how much of your rent goes to property tax? Do you realize what it will be three years from now?"^[66]

Valley residents formed an independent campaign committee, Californians for Proposition 13. Meeting at the good old Chevy dealership that had assisted them from the tax protests in 1976, they raised funds and organized campaign events. A week before the election, Steve Frank roped off his street and threw a block party in support of Proposition 13. One thousand people attended, including Howard Jarvis and a crowd of local media reporters. "Small business owners were really the backbone of the campaign." "The Apartment Association was deeply involved in Proposition 13. Howard Jarvis was the director of the Apartment Association of Los Angeles County and used that as one of his bases to raise money and to conduct the campaign. . . . They made large contributions; they solicited their membership for contributions."^[67]

Indeed, the largest contribution to the campaign for Proposition 13 was $31,000 from the Apartment Association of Los Angeles. Earlier, a computerized mailing to apartment owners had yielded $120,000 in donations. Of the major contributors (larger than $1,000) to the campaign for Proposition 13, most ($80,000) came from real estate and agriculture.^[68] In securing contributions from landed businesses, Jarvis did as well as Watson had done ($76,000) in an initiative campaign during 1968. (See table 4 in chap. 6). Jarvis had what Watson lacked, however—a grassroots movement. Most of the $2.3 million in support of Proposition 13 came in small donations from hundreds of thousands of homeowners. In the Yes on 13 campaign, contributions of less than $1,000 accounted for 92 percent of the funds (compared to only 20 percent for Watson and 29 percent for opponents of Proposition 13).

Although suburban homeowners had gained the support of community business leaders and especially small businesses dealing with land, no support was forthcoming from big business. Large corporations such as

Standard Oil of California, ARCO, the Bank of America, Dean Witter, Paine Webber, Ford, U.S. Steel, Bethlehem Steel, Kaiser Aluminum, Lockheed, Rockwell International, Bechtel, Hewlett-Packard, Crown-Zellerbach, Levi Strauss, Coca-Cola, Southern California Edison, and the Southern Pacific railroad made large contributions against Proposition 13. Although the campaign for Proposition 13 raised $124,000 in large (over $1,000) contributions from business, the No on 13 campaign raised $652,000 in large contributions from business. Although both the Yes on 13 and No on 13 campaigns each raised over $2 million, No on 13 mostly relied on big business and labor organizations. Jarvis tapped relatively small donors—mall property owners who were at odds with big business, big labor, and big government.

Big business's opposition to Proposition 13 irked many small property owners. The Orange County coordinator for Prop. 13 condemned a big business group opposing 13: "They oppose everything that is for the people." Supporters of 13 picketed the downtown offices of the Bank of America because of its stand against the proposition.^[69] A tax activist and business leader in the San Fernando Valley, himself the public affairs director for a medium-sized firm, spoke like a populist: "Big business works to create laws that help protect it. They support more regulation, and they can afford more regulation. Small business can't. . . . The best thing that happened to this state and this country was the passage of Proposition 13. It had nothing to do with taxes or economics. What Proposition 13 taught people is that you can go against government, you can go against big business, you can be a little guy on the block, and you can win."^[70]

Election day was June 6, 1978. The realtors in La Canada and Flintridge had been talking up Proposition 13 with their sales prospects for weeks. Some 40 percent of the realtors in the town were making calls to remind people to vote today—and yes, houses would only get more expensive the longer one delayed buying. By late evening, the results were starting to come in. Ignored was the vote of the inner-city community of Compton—27 percent in favor of Prop. 13. On the Palos Verdes peninsula, "We carried 76 percent in our lowest turn-out precinct in the Prop. 13 election. We carried most by over 90 percent!"^[71] Rolling Hills was 95 percent in favor; Palos Verdes Estates, 89 percent. In the San Fernando Valley communities of Van Nuys and Reseda, 73.8 percent cast ballots in favor; in Northridge and Sepulveda, 77.6 percent; in Canoga Park and Woodland Hills, 81.4 percent; and in Chatsworth and Valencia, 84.2 percent (compared to 64.8 percent statewide).^[72] By nine o'clock Howard Jarvis was on his way to the Biltmore Hotel. By ten o'clock the generic-label Scotch was beginning to flow at the victory celebration.