Bezaire

I. Introduction

In this appeal we deal with a technical question within the overall framework of Proposition 13—whether Proposition 13’s inflation cap should be calculated based on the original purchase price of the property, or whether it always applies against any intervening previous year’s reassessed value. We conclude that the intent of the drafters of Proposition 13, as it was amended in 1978 within six months of its passage by Proposition 8, a measure for which Paul Gann himself co-wrote the ballot argument, is that the inflation factor is calculated against the original purchase price. Indeed, as our Supreme Court pointed out in upholding Proposition 13 in Amador Valley Joint Union High Sch. Dist. v. State Bd. of Equalization (1978) 22 Cal.3d 208 [ 149 Cal.Rptr. 239 , 583 P.2d 1281 ], one of the major planks of Proposition 13 was the transition from a fair market value system (in which your property taxes were pegged, if your property was reassessed, to the fair market value of your property) to an original purchase price system. Calculating the inflation cap based on a previous year’s reassessed value is fundamentally inconsistent with the system that…