The passage of Proposition 30 was not only a deeply personal triumph for Gov. Jerry Brown, who spent the last several weeks campaigning furiously for his tax-hike initiative. It was also a symbolic end to a 34-year period in California history, which began when the state’s voters stoked anti-tax prairie fires across the nation by passing Proposition 13.
But as Proposition 30 began to cruise toward victory late Tuesday night, Brown found himself the beneficiary of an unexpected gift: Democrats had likely captured a two-thirds majority of both chambers of the Legislature, at once turning the Republicans into an irrelevant minority. . .