Bloomberg Business Week
Solar energy advocates are proposing a ballot measure to increase Arizona’s income tax credit for solar energy devices and create a new trading exchange for the state to sell energy credits at a profit. Supporters of the initiative must collect petition signatures of 172,809 voters by July 5, 2012 to qualify the measure for the 2012 general election ballot.
A new initiative to privatize state liquor sales has been filed with the Washington Secretary of State’s office. In November, Washington voters rejected two ballot initiatives to privatize liquor sales. But conservative blogger Stefan Sharkansky says his new proposal would maintain tax revenue and impose tighter control on private liquor sales. He helped craft last year’s Initiative 1100.
The Nevada Senate passed a resolution Thursday rejecting an initiative petition to create a taxing district for a sports arena on the Las Vegas Strip, sending the measure to the 2012 ballot. Senate Concurrent Resolution 4 was approved on a voice vote and now goes to the Assembly, though with the Senate’s action, the vote there is moot.
Limiting the growth of local governments’ property tax revenues would help older North Dakotans avoid being pushed to sell their homes because they could no longer afford the tax bills, legislators and agriculture lobbyists said Tuesday. “My approach is simply this: You’ve got to slow the growth of spending by all the taxing authorities and make them live within a budget that is reasonable,” Rep. Jim Kasper, R-Fargo, said during a North Dakota House Finance and Taxation Committee hearing.
Initiative activist Tim Eyman’s latest smaller-government campaign is straight from the greatest hits collection: requiring a two-thirds supermajority for the Washington Legislature to raise taxes. The concept has been supported by the state’s voters multiple times in ballot measures over the years. It also has been suspended by state lawmakers when tight budgets push them to raise taxes, as majority Democrats did earlier this year.
Bankers, unions, Democrats and Republicans are joining forces to oppose three tax measures on November’s ballot. They claim the measures will cost 73,000 jobs if they pass, so the groups have raised more than $6 million to fight the proposals. Supporters say the measures will create private-sector jobs, but they have raised just $14,000 to press their case. The impacts would occur over several years.
A judge on Tuesday ordered a real estate tax initiative to appear on Missouri’s November ballot, concluding the measure’s supporters submitted enough valid signatures from voters. Earlier this month the Missouri secretary of state’s office concluded that too few signatures were submitted for the initiative to appear. Cole County Circuit Judge Paul Wilson effectively overruled that and ordered election officials to place the measure on the ballot.
The Montana Supreme Court says it won’t block a proposed ballot initiative capping the interest rates on payday loans. Initiative I-164 limits payday loans to an annual percentage rate of 36 percent. Backers gathered enough signatures earlier this year to qualify for the ballot.
Two years ago, advocates of an initiative to ban hunting within fenced game preserves fell 129 petition signatures short of putting their measure in front of North Dakota voters. On Wednesday, Roger Kaseman wasn’t taking any chances. The Bismarck resident wheeled a clear plastic crate brimming with petitions into Secretary of State Al Jaeger’s office, which he said had 13,860 signatures, or 8 percent more than the minimum number of 12,844 needed.
A campaign to impose an income tax on the state’s wealthiest residents is likely headed to the November ballot, as supporters submitted boxes of petitions Thursday morning. Bill Gates Sr., father of the Microsoft Corp. co-founder, and about two dozen other supporters of Initiative 1098 turned in 350,000 petition signatures Thursday in Olympia, many more than the roughly 241,000 required to get on the ballot. The campaign says it will turn in an additional 20,000 Friday.
California’s secretary of state has certified a ballot initiative to ban the state from raiding local funds even in a fiscal crisis. The Secretary of State’s Office on Tuesday announced that a fifth question will appear on the Nov. 2 general election ballot. The initiative seeks to prohibit the state from taking or borrowing local government and transportation funds under any circumstances.