they don't need to raise taxes -- California has run huge budget surpluses

Only very recently. We're talking about over the past half-century

No the California budget is famously boom and bust (currently running large deficits) because it relies on income taxes instead of property taxes, the former of which vary a lot with economic conditions while the latter don’t.

They should start taxing wealth, as many of the wealthiest people have a tiny income in proportion to their wealth.

Wealth taxes* are economically inefficient, impossible to administer, and have little popular support. Consider this: a land value tax is the best (and only good) type of wealth tax, and the people of California hated it so much they voted it out on the ballot!

* Outside of LVT.

This is true, however it was still a property tax (appreciation of course is due to land but the disincentive on improvements is still there), it was poorly administered (long periods between assessments) and it was during the extreme inflation of the 70's.

This is definitely an issue with levying LVT at fairly low rates. Granted, at the time it was relatively high but it wasn't high enough. The 'ideal' LVT would bring down the price of land -considerably-, close to $0. The fact that land still has a large selling price means it is still largely financed with loans, and sensitive to interest rate adjustments.

College became unreasonably expensive after student loan amounts were increased by the federal government and co-singers were eliminated. It was decided that everyone should have access to higher education and it's been a mess since then.