SacramentoTHE MEDIA and political establishment in California hasn't learned a thing in 25 years. In 1978, the Los Angeles Times editorialized sternly against the fiscal drain and "chaotic effects" of Proposition 13, the referendum that cut property taxes deeply and touched off an anti-tax wave across the country. Now, faced with a referendum to toss Democratic governor Gray Davis out of office, the newspaper is warning against the "deeper fiscal hole and the partisan political chaos" that may result. A quarter century ago, the San Francisco Chronicle declared Proposition 13 "a revolutionary threat, a total threat, to the stability of...