Referendum Week: Prop 13 (1978)
This Day in Esoteric Political History
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.6 • 982 Ratings
🗓️ 20 October 2022
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the run-up to the November election, we’re doing a number of episodes that may help you track and process the current news. This week, it’s Referendum Week, looking at the world of referendums, ballot initiatives, and more.
Today, we look at California’s Proposition 13, perhaps the most significant ballot initiative in the 1970’s “referendum fever” era. It was part of a larger anti-tax revolt, and has had decades-long ripple effects for our politics and government.
Sign up for our newsletter! Find out more at thisdaypod.com
And don’t forget about Oprahdemics, hosted by Kellie, out now from Radiotopia.
This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.
Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.
If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com
Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod
Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia. |
| 0:06.5 | My name is Jody Avergan. |
| 0:08.4 | It is day three of Referendum Proposition ballot initiative initiative week whatever you want to call it |
| 0:14.9 | shut it here folks it's coming to an end I know this is the most exciting week of the |
| 0:19.8 | year but this day we go to 1978. We briefly referred to this in a previous episode |
| 0:26.5 | because this is perhaps one of the most significant ballot initiatives in US |
| 0:30.5 | history both because of its effect but also because it came in this moment, as the Atlantic |
| 0:36.5 | put it, of referendum fever. What we are talking about is Proposition 13 in California, an initiative that served as a backlash against rising property |
| 0:46.4 | taxes. |
| 0:47.4 | It had a massive effect. |
| 0:48.8 | It cut and capped property taxes in the state. |
| 0:52.2 | It also changed the rules by which new taxes could be put into place. |
| 0:56.4 | So let's talk about Proposition 13, our continue our conversation about the power and peril of direct democracy. |
| 1:04.0 | Here to do that as always are, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. |
| 1:09.0 | Hello there. |
| 1:10.0 | Hello, Trity. |
| 1:11.0 | Hey there. |
| 1:12.0 | And we were talking about this right before we started recording, but like, we should say |
| 1:16.4 | none of us lived in California. |
| 1:18.3 | We know that this proposition, a lot of California propositions are so fraud and so and the fallout is so you know |
| 1:25.1 | ripple effects and so forth so you know send us your letters if you feel like |
| 1:30.1 | we didn't characterize this but you know we were very interested in this because of the |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.