Law360, New York ( April 12, 2017, 5:49 PM EDT) -- The metaphor refers to the high voltage "third rail" in some electric railway systems — the one that if you touch, you get electrocuted. Not many politicians have suffered political deaths by making proposals against Proposition 13, but in practice, only those from safe districts have put forth any real challenges. In recent years, those bills have been authored by folks like Assembly members Tom Ammiano (fomer San Francisco Democrat) and Assembly member Phil Ting (San Francisco Democrat), Senator Loni Hancock (Berkeley Democrat) and Senator Holly Mitchell (Los Angeles Democrat). Others have largely stayed away from the topic. Even after he won reelection in 2014 for his final term, Governor Jerry Brown has taken a "don't touch" approach in recent years, calling Proposition 13 a "tar baby" in 2015 in the same speech he announced he was not supporting a split property tax roll and stated that "talking about [property] taxes is not a useful topic."...