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read the article at Montana Free Press by Eric Dietrich
Excerpt:
“It had drawn opposition from major institutional stakeholder groups, including the Montana Federation of Public Employees, the Montana Association of Realtors, the Montana Bankers Association, the Montana Chamber of Commerce, the Montana Building Industry Association, the Montana League of Cities and Towns, the Montana Association of Counties and the Montana Quality Education Coalition.
A financial analysis prepared by Gov. Greg Gianforte’s budget office estimated the proposal would reduce property tax collections by 88%, or $1.5 billion a year. Monforton disputed that analysis, maintaining the state Legislature would have been able to mitigate that impact.
Knudsen, a Republican, blocked the proposal in June by declaring the ballot measure’s language “legally insufficient” on the basis of it violating a constitutional provision that requires ballot measures to address one topic at a time. Monforton responded by appealing that decision to the state Supreme Court.
The seven-member court sided unanimously with the attorney general, concluding that different portions of the proposed initiative, Ballot Initiative 2, would need to be put before voters separately. The proposed initiative, justices noted, touched on government functions currently spread between the Montana Department of Revenue, which values property for tax purposes; the state Legislature, which determines how much different classes of properties should pay relative to one another; and local governments, which set the tax rates necessary to support their budgets.
“To be sure, very few policy and administrative determinations are so conjoined, but Montana’s property tax is premised upon the unique uniting of these separate decisions made by independent processes,” Justice Jim Rice wrote on behalf of the court.”
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