I-960 wake-up needed

Initiative 960 deserves the people's support. In this decade, the Legislature has raised statewide taxes on cigarettes, liquor, inheritances and gasoline. Initiative 960 makes further tax increases a bit more difficult, but still allows them in three ways:

• First, by a 50-percent-plus vote of the Senate and House, and then of the people;

• Second, by a two-thirds vote of the Senate and House, with the people retaining their constitutional right to collect signatures and challenge the tax increase in a referendum; and,

• Third, by a two-thirds vote of the Senate and House, plus the declaration of public emergency, which takes away the people's right of referendum. At the next general election, there would be a nonbinding advisory ballot.

That is a kind of embarrassment vote. It says, in effect, "Here is a tax increase your legislators passed by declaring a public emergency, so that you can't run a referendum against it, and here are the names of the legislators who voted for it." Such "emergencies" have spread like slugs in a garden, and though Initiative 960 would not stop them, it would paste legislators' names on them at the delicate moment of re-election.

This is not a great solution, but it's about all the people can do by ballot. We think it would have a wake-up effect on legislators.

Opponents say Initiative 960 would bind the hands of lawmakers too much. We don't think it does. The first two tax-raising methods are already in state law, and the third adds only the embarrassment vote, which is hardly a ball and chain. And, there is another way: After two years, any initiative may be changed by a simple majority of the Senate and House.

This is the difference between I-960 and SJR 8206 (described below). That measure amends the state constitution. It is a concrete dam. I-960 is an earthen dam, guaranteed for two years only. It will continue to work only if legislators don't erode it.

I-960 does some other things. It subjects increases in state fees to a simple majority vote of the Senate and House, rather than agency fiat. It requires that state calculate the 10-year cost of proposed tax and fee increases, and alert the public whenever a tax bill moves toward passage.

We like both of these things, and we think the people will like them, too.