In September, District Court Judge Thomas Sandefur of Great Falls decertified Constitutional Initiative 97 (CI-97), citing “pervasive fraud” in the signature-gathering process. A week later, District Court Judge Dirk M. Honzel of Helena ruled that CI-97 “contains more than one amendment to the constitution,” a violation of the single-subject requirements of the constitution.

MEA-MFT has played an integral role in challenging CI-97, as a founding member of Not In Montana—a coalition of more than 100 grass-roots organizations, which was among the plaintiffs in the lawsuits.

CI-97 is one of a handful of proposed ballot initiatives in states across the country modeled after Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR).

Although the name suggests a pro-taxpayer policy, TABOR is far from it. Just ask Coloradans who voted to suspend it in November 2005 due to its deleterious effect on the availability of public services and the state’s economy.

What TABOR is, however, is an instrument used by anti-government groups to reduce the size of government—and the availability of public services—by limiting the growth of state and local revenues and expenditures.

TABOR proposals come in all forms—legislation, referendums and ballot initiatives.

In some states, like Montana and Oklahoma, it has been marketed as Stop Over Spending or SOS.

In September, the Oklahoma Supreme Court rejected a petition seeking a statewide vote on a TABOR measure, saying it lacked sufficient valid signatures. Nearly 81,000 of the 299,000 signatures gathered to qualify the initiative were collected by out-of-state residents, a violation of Oklahoma law.

In July, promoters of a TABOR initiative in Missouri were shut down when  a judge upheld Secretary of State Robin Carnahan’s decision to disqualify the initiative petition because hundreds of pages of signature sheets didn’t meet requirements that they be numbered, put in order and organized by county.

TABOR is bad public policy, but it is big business for anti-government organizations and their paid signature gatherers.

In 2005, Americans for Limited Government (ALG) started pushing legislators in more than 20 states, including Wisconsin, to refer TABOR amendments to the voters.In states where amendments can be put on the ballot via petition, ALG’s network worked with contractors to pay for professional signature gatherers. Backed by real estate investor Howard Rich, ALG has spent more than $11 million to qualify initiatives in 10 states.

Testimony in the Montana case revealed that out-of-state CI-97 proponents provided the financial backing—$633,000—for what Judge Sandefur referred to as “professional, out-of-state, migrant signature gatherers.”

CI-97 will still be on the November ballot in Montana, however. At press time, the matter of whether the votes for CI-97 would be counted was pending before the state Supreme Court.

Voters in Maine and Oregon also will be voting on TABOR initiatives; and TABOR may be on the ballot in Nebraska, pending court action.