Remembering Lew Uhler For Limiting Taxes Before It Was Cool

The death of Lew Uhler on Friday night deeply shook his legions of friends from coast to coast.

From his native California to Washington D.C., Uhler, 88, was a founding father in the fight to limit taxes at the state and national levels.

Realizing that Uhler would no longer be around to germinate citizens' uprisings against high taxes, many recalled how the Californian was not only present at the creation of the modern "ax the tax" movement, but helped bring it to life.

Grover Norquist, president of Americans For Tax Reform, told Newsmax: "Lou Uhler was a key leader of the anti-tax movement before and long after Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann lit up the sky with the victory of Proposition 13 in California in 1978. Uhler worked across America and at the state and federal levels to reduce taxes and limit spending. America is a stronger and better place for his work."

"Of all my allies in our efforts to bury the confiscatory death tax, none came close to Lew's knowledge and impact," said Jim Martin, longtime head of the Sixty Plus Seniors Association, "He was a titan who will be sorely missed."

Lewis Knight Uhler grew up in California and graduated from Yale University in an eclectic class that included acclaimed author-scholar M. Stanton Evans. Although Yale did not admit women when they were undergraduates, Evans and Uhler would always claim tongue-in-cheek that their class included the first-ever female graduate: physician and acclaimed tennis pro Dr. Renee Richards, who, prior to a sex change operation, was Richard Raskind at Yale.

Uhler earned his law degree at the Boalt Hall School of Law (University of California-Berkley) and, for a decade, was in private practice in Newport Beach, California. During this time, he devoured the works of conservative economists Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich Hayek.

"And that was study all on my own — certainly not ideas I would have ever encountered at Yale!" Uhler recalled to Newsmax in 2003, noting that the works of the three economists helped to sculpt his own credo that government was too big because taxes were too high.

Uhler met Ronald Reagan when the two Southern Californians helped Barry Goldwater's unsuccessful campaign for the presidency in 1964. Two years later, Uhler volunteered for Reagan as he successfully sought the governorship of California.

Through old Yale chum Ed Meese, who served as counsel and then chief of staff to Gov. Reagan, Uhler had easy access to the governor and his administration. In 1968, Reagan tapped Uhler to serve on the California Law Revision Commission. He eventually became a full-time member of Reagan's Sacramento team as State Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. He subsequently served as the number two official to Secretary of Health & Welfare Dr. Earl Brian.

In 1972, Uhler's passion for lower taxes was finally deployed when Gov. Reagan asked him to organize his Tax Reduction Task Force and serve as its chairman. He went nationwide to recruit a panel of advisors, among them Nobel Laureates Friedman and James Buchanan.

Out of the task force emerged California's landmark Revenue Control and Limitation Act, which placed a cap on spending by the state. Reagan proposed it to the legislature in March of 1973, declaring it would be the "proudest accomplishment" of his second term. The Democratic-ruled legislature turned it down, whereupon Uhler crafted the spending cap into a statewide measure known as Proposition One.

Although a majority of Golden State newspapers backed Proposition One and its forces outraised the opposition in campaign funds, there were growing complaints that the wording of the spending cap measure was too confusing for the average voter. When a reporter asked Reagan about whether a voter should fully understand Proposition One before voting for it, the governor replied: "No. He shouldn't try. I don't either."

With about 45% of Californians voting on the controversial proposal, it lost by roughly 47%-53%.

Undaunted, Uhler in 1975 launched the National Tax Limitation Committee (NTLC) to pursue the movement for thwarting tax increases nationwide. It's time would come sooner rather than later, he predicted.

And he was right. In June, 1978, venerable tax protestors Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann oversaw the landslide enactment of California's Proposition 13 which mandated that the ad valorum tax on property would not exceed 1% of the homeowner's annual income.

From there, the movement of which Uhler had dreamed took off as Ernest Hemingway once wrote of bankruptcy: "Gradually, then suddenly."

Tennessee enacted the Copeland Cap establishing that "in no year shall the rate of growth of appropriations from state tax revenues exceed the estimated rate of growth of the state's economy." Michigan voted handsomely for the Headlee Amendment requiring voter approval for any local tax increases or new taxes. In 1980, Missouri enacted the Hancock Amendment requiring the state to refund money to taxpayers when revenues are in excess of a percentage based upon the personal income of Missourians.

In every state where movements such as this arose and flourished, one would inevitably find the seemingly tireless Uhler strategizing and evangelizing.

It is a foregone conclusion that Republican candidates at every level oppose higher taxes and support the limitation of taxes. This would not be so were it not for Lew Uhler, who never gave up after his initial concept lost at the polls in California nearly 49 years ago.

Perhaps his most apt eulogy is the epitaph of the British architect Sir Christopher Wren in London's St. Paul's Cathedral: "If you seek his monument, look around you."

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.