The Montana Supreme Court has said that Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen was correct in striking down a proposed ballot initiative that would have capped property taxes because it violated the state constitution.
In an unanimous opinion authored by Justice Jim Rice, the 17-page ruling said that ballot initiative, proposed by attorney and former Republican lawmaker Matthew Monforton, violated the constitutional mandate of single-subject topics, saying the proposal changed several different sections of the Montana Constitution. Rice said that Montana citizens would have been denied the ability to vote on each of the provisions separately.
“Montana no longer allows its citizens to circulate petitions for comprehensive tax reform,” Monforton told the Daily Montanan when reached on Wednesday.
Monforton had submitted what became known as Ballot Initiative 2, which would have capped property taxes’ annual increase to no more than 2% by changing the property tax valuation from current market value to its value at the time of purchase, a system that is similar to that in California.
Under the ballot initiative, the change would have capped the value, and the property’s taxable value would reset only after the property had been sold.
Knudsen’s office determined the initiative violated the single-subject rule for changing the property tax system because the ballot measure would have changed seven sections of Article VIII, Section 3. Because it made a series of changes to the Montana Constitution, the Montana Supreme Court said that voters faced an all-or-nothing proposal, thereby violating the single-subject rule.
Rice, in the decision, pointed out that Montana’s highest court has previously ruled that the Attorney General’s Office is limited to what initiatives it can stop, and he provided nearly a half-dozen examples.
“The Attorney General’s legal sufficiency review does not authorize him to withhold a proposed ballot measure from the ballot for an alleged substantive constitutional infirmity,” he said, noting that only the courts can “properly” decide constitutional questions.
However, the ruling said the Attorney General does have the power to make sure the ballot measure complies with statute, including the single-subject provision. Pointing to a previous case, the Supreme Court noted that the attorney general’s office had determined a proposed initiative was “legally insufficient” because it appropriated money, which the state constitution vests solely in the Montana Legislature.
“The Attorney General determined that (Ballot Initiative 2), despite being submitted as a single constitutional amendment, had proposed multiple, unrelated changes to Montana’s Constitution. Given the plain language of Article XIV, Section 11, and the purposes of that provision we have previously recognized, we now conclude the Attorney General’s separate-vote determination was properly within his authority to address,” it said. “To say that BI2’s proposed amendments concern only one section of the constitution is correct only in the sense that all of them are parked there, turning a short constitutional section into a long one.
An expansive and diverse number of groups had filed amicus, or friends-of-the-court briefs, opposing different provisions of the initiative, including the Montana League of Cities and Towns, the Montana Federation of Public Employees, the Montana Association of Realtor, the Montana Banking Association, the Montana Building Industry, the Montana Chamber of Commerce, the Montana Association of Counties, and the Montana Quality Education Coalition.
Though the court acknowledged the amici briefs, it stopped short of considering the various legal arguments raised by the different groups because it held that the number of changes the measure proposed made any consideration of other issues moot.
Monforton told the Daily Montanan that his group may attempt to get a similar measure on the ballot that would achieve the same purpose, but also questioned whether there’d be enough time.
The Montana Attorney General’s Office did not respond to requests for comment.
“The attorney general got this one right, and MFPE members are grateful the Supreme Court continued to uphold our Montana Constitution,” said Montana Federation of Public Employees President Amanda Curtis. “Today’s decision removes the risk of voters unintentionally defunding police and sheriffs departments, schools, and all other public services for decades to come. Tax policy does not belong in our constitution.”