Anonymous: 

Our French-born Mom would be so angry if she knew what had happened in the last election with the passage Proposition 19. Her most cherished hope as an immigrant to this great country and this enchanted state was dashed.

Our childhood home that she and our German-born dad bought in 1969 after they left war-ravaged Europe in the 1950s was their piece of the American Dream. It’s not like they had a portfolio of blue chip stocks. It was all about the house or, more precisely the home—our home.

Our mom talked all the time how she wanted her children and grandchildren to enjoy the home when she was gone. She hosted lively family events well into her golden years that cemented the magic of that home for friends and family alike. She spent most of whatever extra funds she had on making sure the house would look good when she was gone.

After our dad died—but well before she lost her mind and long before she passed at 94–she made clear that she expected us to spend most of her limited retirement income on upkeeping the family home. Maybe we’d rent a room in her house to a college student or someone else in need. That’s who she was.

We loved her as sons, and as her fiduciaries we honored her wishes, spending her money on what she wanted us to spend on—our home.

Then, when Proposition 19 passed in November 2020 under a cloud of deception at the hands of California’s realtor’s lobby, a quarter century of financial planning that involved investing cash flow back into the house blew up in our faces.

Now, to meet a tax bill that’s likely to increase year-on-year by as much as 1000%, instead of cherishing her home and honoring her generous spirit by using the home as a place for farflung friends and family to gather while renting a room to a student or someone else not fabulously wealthy, only the highest bidder who can rent the whole house need apply. That, or we’ll be forced to sell.

It’s the scenario that our mom hoped to avoid. And, multiplied many times over throughout California, the fallout from Proposition 19 will further chase out a viable middle class. That’s not what our mom wanted. She was no anti-tax crusader, but she’d be disgusted that in one fiscal year Proposition 19 would lay waste to a quarter century of financial planning. She’d be demoralized that we could no longer enjoy our family home, and she’d be profoundly disappointed that the simple possibility of a middle class life in California was slipping out of reach for countless families. That’s who she was.

If she were still here and in form, she’d be actively railing against the realtor lobby’s deceptiveness and against the government’s inability to address tax policy in a credible and systematic way. Our fight is her fight, and her fight is for the preservation of the American Dream in the Golden State…”