of Equalization from 1932 to 1940, and to the United States Department of the Treasury from 1937 to 1940. In particular, he took a leave of absence from Berkeley in 1933 to work full-time for the Board of Equalization, and another leave in 1937 to help the Treasury Department draft the Revenue Act of 1938. Before the Great Depression, nearly all California governmental functions were funded only through a general property tax on both real and personal property. This proved unworkable when property values collapsed. Through his work for the Board of Equalization, Traynor was responsible for creating much of California's modern tax regime, including the vehicle registration fee (1933), sales tax (1933), income tax (1935), use tax (1935), corporate income tax (1937), and fuel tax (1937). He also served as the first administrator of the California sales tax and supervised its deployment across 200,000 retailers. In January 1940, he started working part-time as a Deputy Attorney General under California Attorney General Earl Warren (who later became Chief Justice of the United States). UC Hastings and others After retiring from the Supreme Court of California in 1970, Traynor became a professor at the UC Hastings College of Law. He also spent some time visiting and teaching at the law schools of University of Utah, University of Virginia, and the University of Cambridge. California Supreme Court Appointment On July 31, 1940, Traynor was nominated to the Supreme Court of California by Governor Culbert Olson. He was unanimously confirmed by the Qualifications Committee on August 13 and was sworn in the same day. In December 1940, he was retained by the voters in the election. In August 1964, Chief Justice Phil S. Gibson stepped down from the bench, and Governor Pat Brown appointed Traynor to the post. Recognition and reputation His obituary in the New York Times noted that "Traynor was often called one of the greatest judicial talents never to sit on the United States Supreme Court." Traynor authored more than 900 opinions, and he gained a reputation as the nation's leading state court judge. During his tenure, the decisions of the Supreme Court of California became the most frequently cited by all other state courts in the nation. Several of Traynor's decisions were majority opinions that transformed California from a conservative and somewhat repressive state into a progressive, innovative jurisdiction in the forefront of American law. Traynor was also noted