Michael Gorder
A Ventura homeowner thinks he's been wronged by Prop. 13
Michael Gorder wants to overturn Proposition 13, even if he has to do it all by himself. No, he’s not a rebel state politician; he’s not even a tax lawyer. He’s a 45-year-old scientist, working for an engineering company in Ventura, who’s sick and tired of his high property taxes.
“Wait a second,” you might ask, “isn’t Prop. 13 keeping his property taxes low?” Well, sort of. A few years ago, when Gorder and his wife moved to Westlake Village, a small planned community straddling the border of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, from Arizona, they got hit with the high property tax that Prop. 13 in effect levels when a property changes hands. When Gorder found out that his neighbors, who had been living in Westlake Village for decades, were paying a property tax bill that was a tiny fraction of his, he was understandably steamed.
Trying to understand how this inequity was legal, he poured over the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling upholding Prop. 13, Nordlinger v. Hahn. Gorder noticed that one of L.A. resident Stephanie Nordlinger’s claims was that Prop. 13 impinged on her constitutional right to travel by leveling a higher property tax if she decided to move. The Supremes said her travel claim was moot since she wasn’t actually planning to move, but that they’d consider hearing a case about it if someone had the standing to bring it.
Gorder saw an opening to take the law into his own hands. He consulted with scholars and enlisted a lawyer, and is starting down the path to the U.S. Supreme Court with a right to travel claim, starting at the assessor’s office. He even started a website, Stop13.org, to rally support around his cause. If he wins, he guesses it could cost the state over $40 billion.Now all he needs is $1 million to cover his legal bills.
–Greg Katz
CityBeat: How did you decide to take on Prop. 13?
Michael Gorder: My wife and I moved here a little over four years ago to a fairly affluent neighborhood. About one-third of the people who live in our community have been there almost since it was built. We live on a small street; there’s nine houses. Three of the families have been there well over 30 years, well before Prop. 13 passed. Three others have been there a significant amount of time: 20 to 25 years. I actually pay more property taxes than my four nearest homeowner neighbors combined. And if you compared me with the lowest of those, [I pay] almost 10 times the rate … these longterm people are paying.
If property taxes were equalized, there would be some people who are negatively affected, but the scheme, I think, is a really disingenuous and unscrupulous way of passing property taxes onto new property owners.
On what grounds are you challenging Prop. 13?
My basis for challenging it is a legal concept called right to travel. It’s not directly in the U.S. Constitution; it’s an implied right. It’s had some pretty good successes challenging tax laws which disproportionately assess taxes or benefits based broadly in terms of residency time. [Prop. 13] limits your right to travel because it creates a financial impediment to travel.
What case law are you relying on?
One case that’s fairly well known – this is about 25 years ago – there was a case in Alaska where the state was providing benefits based on oil revenue. There’s a state tax credit to residents of the state, and the state was basing the amount of the credit you get on the length of your term of residency. It was shot down because it’s related to right to travel. [The Alaska law] was saying, “The long term resident has more right to stay here and enjoy the benefits of the benefits of the state than a new resident does,” and that was shot down by the U.S. Supreme Court. It’s probably the most directly comparable case law to what I would look at this case being.
The Supreme Court visited Prop. 13 back in 1982. The complainant, Stephanie Nordlinger, lived in L.A. The Supreme Court disqualified her right to travel argument based on the fact that she already lived in the community that she was buying property in; they basically said, “You don’t have a right to travel case, so we’ll consider your case on the other arguments.” But they directly say, in the ruling, that the right to travel remains an open question – effectively, “We wouldn’t mind hearing this again on that basis.” So it’s like, “Okay! Here I am!”
How far have you gotten in your challenge?
I’ve done the appeal through the county assessor’s office. The next phase, for my attorney and I, is to make a claim with the county supervisors for reimbursement of my “overpayment” to date. But if we don’t make any progress in finding allies, I probably won’t carry it any further than that. We’re talking probably a million-dollar lawsuit on my own if I take it to the Supreme Court. I’m looking for help.
Has anyone offered you support?
I’ve talked to a lot of people about this: some of them in government, some of them in academia, some attorneys. What I find is, there’s a lot of sympathy but not a lot of support for my position. There’s a lot of folks who think that changing to an equalized system would be fairer than it is now, but they don’t believe it’s possible.
If you won, wouldn’t it hurt people on fixed incomes and the elderly?
For one thing, there’s actually already another protection for those people, and that is that people on controlled incomes can defer their tax payments, or at least partially defer them, till their property is sold – I think this is available to [senior citizens], and it’s also available to people on disability.
Is the state government apprehensive that you might win?
I managed to get an opinion from the Board of Equalization a couple years ago. I wrote a somewhat exaggerated letter saying, “If I succeed in this challenge, it will cost the state $100 billion because they will have to refund property taxes. Don’t you think that’s something worth thinking about?” I actually got their senior counsel to write an opinion, which I was happy to get because it pointed out what their thinking is. He didn’t deal with the question that’s really at issue here at all, which is, “Is there really a risk?” He said, “No, we don’t think so.” But … if you compare this with the Alaska case, it’s practically the same thing! If you argue it right and draw the class [action lawsuit] lines right, it really just becomes a question of, “Do the justices think they agree with me or not?”
I’d rather not cost the state $50 billion. I’d rather see this fixed in the legislature, but I don’t think the legislature has the heart to try, because there’s so many interests at work.
Published: 01/23/2008
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