Howard Jarvis called the politicians "moochers and loafers" and two-thirds of California voted with him.
Now the people pushing California's new Billionaire Tax are coming after anyone who dares to fight back.
What they did to try to silence him is something Americans used to only see in countries they'd never want to live in.
Alliance Defending Freedom Defeats SEIU Attempt to Silence California Billionaire Tax Critic
Richard Lucas is a sixth-generation Californian, a software company co-founder, and an independent candidate for the 51st Assembly District running from Santa Monica to Hollywood.
He built a website called California Wealth Exodus tracking the damage from a November 2026 ballot measure that would hit California billionaires with a one-time 5% wealth tax.
He named the measure's academic drafters and union sponsors on that site – UC Berkeley's Brian Galle and Emmanuel Saez, SEIU-UHW President Dave Regan and his chief of staff Suzanne Jimenez, UC Davis's Darien Shanske, and University of Missouri's David Gamage – and called them the "Looter Dream Team."
He linked to their public contact pages so voters could reach them directly.
Their lawyer sent him cease-and-desist letters in February and April threatening legal action under California's anti-doxxing statute.
"They tried to threaten me with jail time to take this site down," Lucas wrote on the site. "I fought back. The site stays up."
Alliance Defending Freedom stepped in and told that lawyer exactly where to go.
Linking to public contact information for people who voluntarily made themselves the public face of a major statewide ballot measure "is not sufficient to place anyone, especially a limited purpose public figure, in reasonable fear for their safety," ADF's April 27 response letter stated.
Each member of the "Looter Dream Team" had publicly championed the Billionaire Tax through media appearances, op-eds, and open letters — with Jimenez going so far as to identify herself as the coalition's official spokesperson.
"They have willingly entered the public sphere by throwing their support behind a controversial political opinion," ADF told their lawyer. "As a result, they may be exposed to opinions – even harsh opinions – of those who disagree with them."
Filing suit would trigger California's anti-SLAPP statute – strategic lawsuits against public participation – exposing the group to penalties, attorney's fees, and immediate dismissal.
Culver City School Board Cuts Mom's Mic for Opposing Parcel Tax Hike
Lucas isn't the only Californian being told to sit down and shut up about taxes.
Melissa Sanders logged into a Culver City Unified School District board meeting in March and did what taxpayers are supposed to do.
She told the board she would campaign against any new parcel tax until they enforced residency requirements and got the budget under control.
She pointed out that more than 90% of the district's budget disappears into payroll and benefits.
Board member Triston Ezidore interrupted her before she finished: "Can we mute the hate speech, please?"
The chair cut her off as her time expired.
Sanders' response was audible on the recording: "what hate speech?"
That's the right question.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression had already sent Culver City two warning letters on Sanders' behalf – December 2024 and February 2025 – over the board's pattern of cutting off commenters for "intimidating" Zoom backgrounds.
Sanders had "TIME TO RESIGN" on her background with two board members' names.
Federal courts have frowned on viewpoint-based restrictions on public comment at government meetings – and Culver City has already drawn two formal warnings for doing exactly that.
California Hate Speech Training Law AB 1803 Would Silence Anyone Who Fights Back
The school board and the Billionaire Tax professors aren't freelancing – Sacramento is building the infrastructure behind them.
AB 1578 would require mandatory "anti-hate speech training" for every state and local elected official in California.
AB 1803 – which passed the Legislature earlier this month – extends that same requirement to every employer with more than five workers.
There is one problem the Legislature cannot solve: nobody can define what hate speech actually is.
The Assembly's own Labor and Employment Committee admitted it in writing: "Committee staff is not aware of a definition of hate speech in California law."
FIRE warned that undefined hate speech regulation hands government "sweeping authority to suppress views it doesn't like."
"We have seen these ideas tried on campuses, and we have seen them fail time and time again," wrote FIRE's Adam Goldstein and Greg Gonzalez.
Howard Jarvis passed Prop 13 in 1978 by calling out the political class as "moochers and loafers" – "just like a bunch of locusts going through a grain field."
His revolt swept Ronald Reagan into the White House and touched off anti-tax movements across the country.
Today, the people pushing a new California tax are threatening candidates with jail for following his example.
The only thing stopping them is a nonprofit law firm, a software developer who won't back down, and a First Amendment the California Legislature hasn't managed to repeal yet.
Sources:
- Greg Piper, "California birthed the modern tax revolt. Now it's being suppressed as doxxing, 'hate speech'," Just the News, May 8, 2026.
- Alliance Defending Freedom, Response Letter to Catha Worthman, April 27, 2026.
- Adam Goldstein and Greg Gonzalez, "Lawmakers want to force Californians to take anti-hate speech training," Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, April 2026.
- Pedro Frigola, "When Disagreement Becomes a Moral Violation," Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, May 1, 2026.
