Tax amendment, phone
service petitions verified
■ The state spending amendment
still may face legal challenges
from opponents of the proposal.
By Todd Anderson
Senior staff writer
Supporters of two major ballot initiatives
had reason to cheer last week as their validated
petitions were received by Secretary of State
Scott Moore.
But with approval just around the comer,
more legal challenges might be ahead for a
proposed constitutional amendment to limit
the growth of state spending.
By last Wednesday, all 93 Nebraska counties
had turned in verified petitions for the spending
initiative, as well as a proposal to cut long-distance
telephone rates, according to Moored office.
By unofficial counts, both petitions gath
ered enough signatures to appear on the Nov. 3
election ballot.
Supporters and opposition groups will
have an opportunity to verify the numbers sub
mitted by the counties before the final num
bers are certified in September.
The group for the state spending amend
ment proposal originally submitted 181,565 sig
nhj|ires. Of those, 125,156proved to be valid.
£|fA.t least 105,292 were required to place the
proposed constitutional amendment to limit
the growth of state spending on the ballot.
In addition, the petition required 5 percent
of voters from at least 38 Nebraska counties.
Sixty-five counties met the requirement
The spending petition, written and submit
ted by a group of Nebraska business leaders,
would cap state and local tax rates according
to a formula allowing for population and cost
of-living increases.
The group argues that state spending has
increased too fast since die 1970s, once popula
tion growth and inflation rates are accounted for.
Extra state revenues would have to be
returned to taxpayers through cuts in rates of
sales and income taxes.
Craig Christiansen, chairman of
Nebraskans for the Good Life - the main
group opposing the spending proposal - said
he doubts his group will question the validity
of the signature because of the large number
that would have to be disqualified.
Instead, he said, his group plans to file a sec
ond round of legal challenges claiming unconsti
tutionality because of the length of the proposal
Both the Nebraska Supreme Court and the
Lancaster County District Court have over
turned earlier challenges because they were
prematurely filed.
Moore’s office also received 85,813 valid
signatures in favor of an initiative to reduce the
fees that long-distance telephone companies
charge out of 125,493 originally submitted.
The proposed state law, supported by
AT&T, needed 73,704 signatures to be includ-~
ed on the November ballot.
Coalition prepares attempt
to defeat state tax measure
By Brian Carlson
Staff writer
Opponents of a proposed constitutional
amendment to limit the growth of state tax rev
enue are preparing a grass-roots effort to defeat
the initiative, which they say would weaken
government services and hamper efforts at
property tax relief.
Nebraskans for the Good Life, a coalition of
organizations opposed to the amendment,
recently hired Craig Christiansen, former presi
dent of the Nebraska State Education
Association, to lead its effort
Backed by a group of business leaders and
taxpayer advocates, the amendment would limit
the growth of the state’s spending.
Christiansen said the amendment could
cause dangerous levels of underfunding for
education, police and fire departments and
other government services, making it more dif
ficult to provide property tax relief.
“The primary problem with this amendment
for Nebraskans is that it essentially ends prop
erty-tax relief efforts in the state,” he said.
The requirement that surplus state revenue
be returned through sales and income tax cuts
would deplete resources available for state aid
to schools and local governments, Christiansen
said. That in turn would cause local govern
ments in need of additional revenue, he said, to
increase their only available source of funding -
property taxes.
Christiansen also said the amendment’s
exemption of college tuition from the limits in
revenue growth would force state colleges and
universities to increase tuition to compensate
for lost state funding.
Nebraskans for the Good Life already has
launched one unsuccessful legal challenge to
the amendment The group argued before the
Lancaster County District Court that the 3,450
word amendment violates state law limiting
petitions to one subject
The court ruled that this challenge would
have to wait until the secretary of state’s office
announced the amendment would appear on the
ballot.
Christiansen said Nebraskans for the Good
Life would mount another court challenge at
that time.
One of the member organizations of
Nebraskans for the Good Life is the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln chapter of the American
Association of University Professors.
The group’s president, UNL horticulture
Professor Dave Lewis, said the organization
thinks the amendment would not safeguard any
level of education in Nebraska.
“We feel it would be detrimental to the
development and continued growth of high
er education and education in general,” he
said.
Christiansen said Nebraskans for the Good
Life would have considerably less funding
available than the amendment’s proponents, but
would rely on word of mouth, grass-roots cam
paigning and eventually television advertise
ments to spread its message.
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