Investment makes it extremely likely to qualify
by Brian Leubitz
There was some thought rumbling around that Amazon was just going to use their measure to overturn the online sales tax measure as a stick to beat politicians with. But it now seems they are intent on getting it on the ballot:
In a filing Friday with the Secretary of State, {Amazon} revealed it had already contributed $3 million to the More Jobs Not Taxes Committee, which was established less than a month after a state law taxing online purchases took effect.
The committee bills itself as a “growing coalition of taxpayer groups, consumers, small businesses, and online companies,” but so far it has only one funder: Amazon.
The company’s contribution will go toward gathering signatures to put an initiative repealing the tax on the June 2012 ballot, committee spokesman Ned Wigglesworth said. The committee must submit 504,760 valid signatures to the Secretary of State by Sept. 27. (The Bay Citizen)
I think it is at least interesting to note that Wigglesworth is a former staffer for Common Cause, who, you know, advocates for openness and is generally against large corporations buying electoral votes. But since he also managed the campaign for Prop 26 and the expansion of the 2/3 rule, I guess that Common Cause stint is more the anomaly than the current gigs.
Returning to the issue of speculation, there is one more side benefit for qualification for Amazon. As soon as the referendum is qualified for the ballot, the law isn’t valid until it is approved by voters. Of course, Amazon isn’t obeying the law now, as they aren’t gathering taxes for their California sales, but the referendum puts the legal question off for a while. Even if they lose on the ballot measure, they likely earn back that $3 million bucks.
Of course, they’ll need to spend more than $3 million to win when this gets to the ballot, but they certainly have the easier side of the argument.
So I went to my local Trader Joe’s yesterday and there was this nice looking older fellow hanging out by the door with a clipboard in his hand. He’s working for Amazon getting signatures for this. He said the legislature, without voter approval had put this new tax on internet purchases. I told him I knew that and thought that the new requirement was a fine idea.
He said: “then you really want to sign this – without voter approval, the Supreme Court will overturn the tax requirement, so we need this initiative to preserve it”
I told him he was a slimy liar and went about my business.
So far, in 40 years as a registered voter, I can’t remember a single case of being approached by a professional signature gatherer who told the simple truth about what they were doing. Not once. Volunteers usually are honest, but the pros, never.
If Amazon would just pony up that same $6 million for taxes instead? I know it’s a drop in our deficit bucket. But I’m sure we could think of at least a few good ways to use it. For example, I’ll bet it would fix the slip-out on one of the major roads out of the mountain valley I live it. That road carries 2,000 commuters a day and was dangerous before it lost part of a lane on a sharp curve. In the event of a natural disaster or fire, the loss of one lane on that major road could cost people their lives as they tried to evacuate. So I can really see why Amazon would rather pay people to lie in front of our local supermarket.