Missouri’s Third Rail: Why The Hancock Amendment Should Be Repealed

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http://brendakilby.wordpress.com/2009/05/12/499/

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How the Hancock Amendment Became Law
The 1970s was a period of massive inflation in the United States, when the price of groceries, durable goods and gasoline skyrocketed. Wages went up too, but not as fast as property values and the tax bill. Property values in Missouri and other states that were reassessed every two years, increased tenfold in eight years. By 1978, when California voters passed Proposition 13, annual inflation was around 13 percent (Lynch, 2009). The push for Proposition 13 received a lot of press coverage, and sparked interest nationwide, and the debate provided imagery most people could relate to easily: “the fast-rising property tax assessments of <1978}when levies on ordinary houses in nondescript neighborhoods often rose by several thousand dollars every two years or less. [were> . . . literally taxing many people on fixed incomes out of their homes (Elias, 2009). Proposition 13 “fever” soon raced across the nation with wildfire’s force, and along the way, ignited the interest of Mel Hancock, a Springfield, Mo. businessman and Republican Party promoter. Hancock, a one-time insurance salesman who later ran a security equipment firm, was no doubt attracted to the fame Howard Jarvis had achieved in California by collecting signatures and putting Proposition 13 on the ballot. Jarvis, a septuagenarian from Orange County, was catapulted into instant, national recognition as the leader of a successful “populist” campaign that reduced property taxes 57 percent (Smith, 1999). The populist label attracted Hancock, who in 1978 had aspirations of succeeding his mentor and friend, long-time member of Congress Gene Taylor (R-Mo.) Just as Jarvis did, Hancock designed an amendment to the Missouri Constitution that would reduce property taxes and state revenues. He and his committee collected signatures, and managed to get it on the ballot in November, 1980. Similar measures, near copies or merely bills that were inspired by California’s Proposition 13, were also put on the ballot that year and for several elections to come. Some of the measures failed, but the Hancock Amendment passed. Hancock’s aspirations for public office would have to wait. It took ten years for the security system salesman from the Show-Me State to win an election and follow his buddy Gene Taylor to the U.S. Congress; Nevertheless, Hancock managed to accomplish something with his tax bill that even Jarvis didn’t do: his name and the tax and expenditure limiting law (TEL) he championed became synonymous – known to one and all as the Hancock Amendment.

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1. To clarify

The Hancock Amendment is similar to Proposition 13 in California and the TABOR in Colorado.
When states become bankrupt because of this type of measure, it affects everyone.