Prop. 13 Fighter Seeks a Fair Shake
Stephanie Nordlinger did not begin this with any desire to play hero in a morality play over property taxes in California. Nor did she want to be anybody’s villain.
Yet by this time next year, Nordlinger could be the woman whose lawsuit unraveled Proposition 13. It would earn her the gratitude of one legion of homeowners--and make her infamous to another. Her name wouldn’t buy many free lunches in the business world either.
Nordlinger, a 50-year-old first-time home buyer in the Baldwin Hills area, said all she wants is to be treated fairly. She lives alone, has no children and pays about $1,800 a year in property taxes. Her neighbor, with three children in schools financed by property taxes, pays about $350.
Except for the schools, they probably consume about the same level of public services those taxes pay for, Nordlinger said. The difference in tax bills is based solely on the fact that her neighbor has lived on the street a long time, while Nordlinger bought her simple, clean three-bedroom house in 1988.
Under Proposition 13, the longer a property is owned, the bigger the gap between its taxes and the higher taxes paid by its newer neighbors. It’s an artificial social chasm, Nordlinger says, between a “landed gentry” that is getting a free ride on the backs of property owners “who did not happen to buy in the ‘60s and ‘70s.”
If the U.S. Supreme Court shares Nordlinger’s view, the 13-year-old tax-cutting initiative could face a major revision. Nordlinger has filed an appeal with the court that has yet to be accepted for argument, but is very similar to a case the court accepted last month involving Macy’s department stores.
Originally, Nordlinger hoped any infamy from the case would be absorbed by Macy’s. But after four days of publicity when the Supreme Court accepted its appeal, Macy’s dropped its case, leaving Nordlinger out there as the main legal antagonist of the politically popular Proposition 13.
Her case began as a request for lower taxes to then-Los Angeles County Assessor John Lynch. He denied the claim, and Nordlinger sued in 1989 with the backing of a West Los Angeles law firm, Hall & Phillips, that was itching to do battle over Proposition 13.
“They were looking for a plaintiff and I was looking for an attorney,” said Nordlinger, herself an appellate attorney in private practice out of her home.
State courts all the way up to the California Supreme Court denied her appeals, and now the U.S. Supreme Court is pondering whether to take up the fairness issue.
The crux of her constitutional argument is whether Proposition 13 inhibits the movement of American citizens by requiring new arrivals in California to pay higher taxes. Nordlinger, however, is from a pioneer Los Angeles family and was raised in the West Los Angeles area.
Originally, she hoped for the suit to be pursued as a class-action case that would deflect public backlash, but that proved impractical. Now she is taking pains to keep her address a secret and prepare for a bout of intense attention.
“I’m trying to get out in front of it,” Nordlinger said recently. “I don’t want to be picketed . . . it’s just not right to stop someone from going to court. It’s a democracy. I have a right to petition the courts for redress of my grievances.”
Since her suit gained notoriety, she says, the letters and calls have been about evenly split and not too numerous. The strongest reaction so far is the cold shoulder from her neighbor, she said.
Of her critics, she says many don’t understand that her lawsuit is not an across-the-board attack on Proposition 13, but only a move to make property assessments more even and sensible. The suit challenges a clause that taxes most property at a fraction of its actual market value, except when the property is sold. Once sold, the assessment used to calculate taxes is revised to the new market value.
No one whose taxes might rise under a revised Proposition 13--and she contends many taxes, like hers, would plummet--should fear being driven from their home, she said. Aid programs are in place for people who are aged or disabled, and the tax laws could be rewritten to help low-income homeowners, Nordlinger said.
For other homeowners, she said, the increase might be unpleasant but bearable. Testimony in the Superior Court trial of her suit suggested that if all Los Angeles County property were assessed at today’s value, the tax rate could fall to less than half of the current 1%.
Someone living in a home that would sell at $400,000 today--but who pays only $1,000 a year in taxes based on its Proposition 13 value of $100,000--would see their taxes rise less than $1,000.
“That’s not much,” Nordlinger said. “And a lot of people have mortgages that are low or paid off. I don’t think it would force people to move.”
Conversely, it would let people move who feel stuck in their current house by the prospect of a large jump in taxes--and the system would be fairer, Nordlinger said.
“I would be happier to pay less tax, like anyone,” she said. “But if you want to have services, you have to tax the middle class and the rich. Taxes should be reasonably related to income and wealth, and not to arbitrary things like when you bought your house.”
This is not her first battle with Proposition 13. Shortly after the measure was passed by voters in 1978, Nordlinger was among six Los Angeles public defenders who sued the county over promotions postponed by Proposition 13. They lost, and Nordlinger eventually was promoted.
She left the public defender’s office in 1979 for a private law practice in Century City and Santa Monica. She has since served as a judge pro tem on small claims and traffic cases, and for six months in 1988 as executive director of Westside Legal Services, a law firm for indigents.
Nordlinger, who has master’s degrees in economics and political science, came to the law after a career as an international relations officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development and a stint as research assistant at the RAND Corp. She was admitted to the Bar in 1975 at the age of 35.
Her list of memberships suggests mild activism with a liberal streak--the Sierra Club, Tree People, Westwood Democratic Club, and the ACLU of Southern California, where she had been a board member.
“She is someone who wants to be of service to the community,” said Ramona Ripston, the ACLU’s executive director in Los Angeles.
If the Supreme Court orders a rewrite of Proposition 13, Nordlinger predicts the state Legislature will get the job of devising a new tax system. She wants any new system to give public officials more flexibility to collect taxes for dealing with new demands on public services, such as AIDS patients.
Political pressure would prevent a hidden tax increase, she says, though she regards a tax revolt like the one in the late 1970s that spawned Proposition 13 to be an unlikely result in any case.
Property taxes were much higher in 1978 than they would be if her appeal wins, she said, and in those days there was a massive state budget surplus that rankled taxpayers. Now the state government faces a large deficit and many local agencies are making crisis plans due to budget cuts.
“I don’t think there’s an economic basis for a mass revolt,” Nordlinger said.
