entering the race to succeed Allen, but was several weeks short of having reached the constitutionally required age of 30 prior to the beginning of the legislative session, and Allen was appointed back to this seat again. Assessor of Property In 1960 Allen was elected Assessor of Property for Davidson County, Tennessee. This position was (and generally still is) widely regarded as an unglamorous administrative courthouse position, little-noticed by the public except when complaints are made about increasing property assessments. However, Allen was to make it his political base for the next 15 years. In 1962, Nashville voters agreed to merge many of the functions of the former City of Nashville municipal government and those of Davidson County into a metropolitan government. While the position of assessor of property (popularly referred to as "tax assessor") was retained in the combined government, Allen decided to run for mayor of the consolidated city-county. Allen finished second behind long-time rival Beverly Briley, the last county judge (chief executive) of Davidson County. The new Metropolitan Charter required a runoff since no one received a majority, and Briley defeated Allen in the runoff. Allen long had positioned himself as a populist, a defender of the rights of the elderly, impoverished, and "average people". He worked to make a certain amount of property held by elderly homeowners with low incomes exempt from property tax. The issue with which he will be perennially identified in Tennessee political history is undoubtedly that of "Question 3". The Tennessee State Constitution had stood unamended from 1870 to 1952, the longest any such document had ever stood such in the world. In part, this was due to the extremely difficult procedure set by the document for amendment. One of the methods permitted allowed the legislature to put on the ballot a call for a limited constitutional convention, one which would be limited to discussion and proposals on only those parts of the constitution named in the call. This procedure was limited to once in a six-year period; beginning in the 1950s conventions began to be held almost as often as allowable, and had made considerable changes in the state's basic document, such as allowing city-county consolidation as alluded to above and also for other updatings such as the extension of gubernatorial and state senate terms from two to four years, allowing legislators to be paid over and above expense money, and