Howard Jarvis

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Howard Jarvis (September 22, 1903 - August 11, 1986) was an American politician.

Jarvis was born in Magna, Utah, and died in Los Angeles, California. In Utah he had some political involvement working with his father's campaigns and his own. His father was a state supreme court judge and, unlike Jarvis, a member of the Democratic Party. Howard Jarvis was active in the Republican Party and also ran small town newspapers. Although raised Mormon he smoked cigars and drank vodka as an adult. He moved to California in the 1930s due to a suggestion by Earl Warren.^[1]

In California he went on to lead the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, he spearheaded Proposition 13, the property tax-cutting initiative in California in 1978 which slashed property taxes by fifty-seven percent and initiated a national tax revolt. Jarvis was a Republican primary candidate for the U.S. Senate in California in 1962, but the nomination and the election went to the liberal Republican Thomas Kuchel.

In 1980 he had a cameo appearance in the film Airplane!, playing an incredibly patient taxi passenger whose metered fare in an unattended taxi rises to over $113. This was an "inside joke" that people outside California were probably unaware of, since Jarvis, the champion of fiscal responsibility, spent the entire movie sitting in an empty cab, with the meter running, waiting for the driver to return.

During a public speaking event, Jarvis was hit in the face with a pie, to which he responded, "That doesn't bother me a damn bit."