The supply-side lost an icon with the passing of the founder and president of the National Tax Limitation Committee, Lewis K. “Lew” Uhler at 88. Uhler was the godfather of the California tax revolt and of term limits.

In 1968, then-Governor Ronald Reagan selected Uhler to serve on the California Law Revision Commission. In 1970, Reagan designated Uhler as the Governor’s State Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. Subsequently, Uhler served in Reagan’s cabinet as Assistant Secretary of the Health & Welfare Agency. In 1972, Governor Reagan asked Uhler to organize and serve as Chairman of the Governor’s Tax Reduction Task Force. With the assistance of a nationwide panel of advisors (including Nobel Laureates Milton Friedman and James Buchanan), the task force developed California’s landmark Revenue Control and Limitation Act, which became a model for tax-expenditure limitation measures in many states. In 1990, Uhler was co-author of Proposition 140, California’s pioneering state term limit initiative.

He will be missed.