Can SOH stand constitutional challenge?

How accurate is your property tax assessment? Property assessments are supposed to reflect property values January 1st of this year. But that's not happening, because much of the real estate data tax collectors are now using goes back to when real estate values were way up.

Earlier this year the State mandated Municipalities and Counties to roll back their taxes to 2006 levels. While the debate was still going on in Tallahassee, Cutler Bay Manager Steven Alexander, managed to lobby the legislature to exempt newly incorporated municipalities like Cutler Bay from this aspect of the property tax reform legislation passed by the state Legislature.

As reported on http://beautifulcity.us website earlier Palm Beach on the other hand went beyond the State recommendation and cut taxes by 12% backed by the increased revenue flow from new construction. Some other municipalities defied the state directives and did not roll back their taxes.

Eric Hersh, the mayor of Weston in Ft. Lauderdale filed a lawsuit against the state in an effort to stop the statewide referendum in January on the legislature's Super Homestead proposal. He also said it is not being funded by the city of Weston, near Ft. Lauderdale, where he serves as mayor. He filed it on July 9 as a private taxpayer and citizen. If successful, he could at the very least get the referendum postponed until next November. He is also challenging the Legislature's right to force cities to roll back property taxes. The mayor, who is up for reelection next year, called it unconstitutional.

What has state officials most worried is the law suite filed by Jerome Lanning, a retired attorney from Birmingham, Ala. Lanning said he and his lawyers expected the suit would be dismissed in Florida courts, as it was on Aug. 6 in Leon County. Lanning and his wife claim their second home in Santa Rosa County, in the Panhandle, is being taxed disproportionately higher than their neighbors' homes simply because they are not primary Florida residents. Circuit Judge John Cooper of Leon County acknowledged that but said past decisions by the Florida and U.S. supreme courts allowed such disparate taxing.
 
Florida's state lawyers are wary of the case landing before the U.S. Supreme Court, where it would stand or fall on federal constitutional merits.

"We have absolutely no idea of not pursuing it," Lanning said. "It's a disparate tax treatment of non-Florida residents vs. residents. From the outset, our understanding going into this was that we would proceed to the Florida Supreme Court and then to the U.S. Supreme Court."

State Rep. Bill Proctor, R-St. Augustine, said he is among a group of legislators and officials who fear the lawsuit could succeed, distressing property owners statewide and roiling the government.

Even if the case ultimately fails, Proctor said some officials fear Save Our Homes could not withstand a challenge even from a Florida resident.

"There are people who contend the situation would not stand a strong constitutional challenge," Proctor said. "People could also have adequate standing if they move into a neighborhood, buy a home identical to another next to them, and pay considerably more taxes simply because they came in new. If a group like that filed suit, that could be the end of Save Our Homes."