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I have to agree with nmgolfer on Prop 13. When it passed, it rolled back house values to 1975 levels and taxed them at 1%, and allowed assessed values to increase no more than 2% per year. That means that a house in, say, Manteca, which was sold in 1976 for $13,000 is now assessed at no more than $25,000, even though the market value is over $200,000 (and was over $450,000 at the peak of the bubble.) Meanwhile, my modest $113,000 house is assessed at full value because I bought in 2003. I pay $1,130 in taxes on a house that is worth less than half of a house that pays less than $250 in taxes because it's grandfathered in. Had Prop 13 not passed, California would be in much better fiscal shape.
Corporations have it even better. If a corporation is sold and the new owner retains the same "shell corporation" to hold the real estate, they keep their taxes at Prop 13 levels, something private citizens don't get to do.
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