DANIEL R. MULLINS and BRUCE A. WALLINA principle and an event were key motivating factors behind the American Revolutionand subsequent establishment of the United States. The principle was ‘‘No taxationwithout representation,’’ protesting the absence of colonists’ representation in Englandon decisions relating to the colonial power’s ability to extract payment for the support ofgovernment. The event was the Boston Tea Party, where patriots threw bags of tea intoBoston Harbor to protest taxation of that everyday staple.Over 200 years later, 1978’s Proposition 13 in California reignited the flames oftaxpayer revolt in America. Voters found that they could go into a voting booth andgrant themselves a $7 billion property tax break. While other state and local tax and ex-penditure limitations (TELs) had been imposed throughout our nation’s history, and thetrend had accelerated in the 1970s, Proposition 13 captured the attention of the nation,yielding its sponsor, Howard Jarvis, an unlikely Time magazine cover. The general issueof the level of, and dissatisfaction with, taxes swept across the land, and played a largepart in the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency. The anti-tax stance hasremained a staple of campaigns ever since.As Proposition 13 had been put on the ballot through the initiative process, its prog-eny appeared most rapidly and widely in those states where voters had direct access tothe ballot. Indeed, one study of early initiatives found that access to the ballot was amore significant predictor of a voter initiative passing than was the level of a state’staxation. Legislators in states with the initiative process often either passed their ownTEL measures or put legislatively crafted limits out to referendum in an effort to preventmore severe voter-initiated action. Legislators in states without the initiative often didthe same, fearful of retribution at reelection time for failure to act. Within two years ofthe passage of Proposition 13, 43 states had implemented some kind of property tax