Finally! Pop Tax Rollback Makes the Ballot

The Last Initiative Gets a Thumbs-Up -- And State Elections Officials Can Take a Pause That Refreshes

By Erik Smith

Staff writer/ Washington State Wire

OLYMPIA, July 28.—Initiative 1107 is good to go, state elections officials say, and that rounds out the ballot for the year – the last of six initiatives submitted this year, all of which had more than enough signatures to qualify.

            Initiative 1107 is the soda-pop tax rollback sponsored by the Washington Beverage Association. The pop distributors spent the most money of the six campaigns that made the ballot this year. Their late-starting signature drive cost them $2.5 million.

            But it’s a measure that could save $300 million over three years. It aims to roll back taxes imposed by this year’s Legislature in order to help close a nearly $3 billion hole in the budget. In addition to rolling back the soda-pop taxes, about two cents a can, it also would repeal new sales taxes on candy, gum and bottled water.

It also would restore an expansion of a tax break for canned-food processors that was narrowed by legislators. That last point wasn’t horribly controversial in the Legislature, and it didn’t amount to much – $4 million a year – but it allowed the pop distributors to get the word “food” into their ballot title. The campaign calls itself “Stop the Food and Beverage Tax Hikes.”

The Last of the Six

State elections officials say they think I-1107 may have set a speed record. Court challenges to its ballot title weren’t cleared up until June 10, and it turned in signatures July 2, the deadline day – a 22-day sprint to the finish. And while the paid signature gathering drive was the year’s most expensive, the backers got their money’s worth. Sponsors turned in 408,000 signatures, far exceeding the 241,000 that were required.

As in all this year’s initiatives, state elections officials conducted a three percent random sample of signatures. Of the 12,428 examined, 10,805 were accepted. That’s good enough, the officials said.

The measure was the last of six that the elections office has scrutinized and sent to the ballot. The others are:

n      1053, which would restore the two-thirds vote requirement for the Legislature to raise taxes.

n      1082, which would allow private insurance companies to compete with the state workers’ compensation program.

n     1098, which would launch a high-earner income tax.

n     1100, which would shutter the state liquor stores, allow sales of hard liquor in private stores, and end the distributor monopoly that forces alcohol sales to go through distributors.