Changes to "Double Majority" Tax-Measure Pass House

The Associated Press
April 6, 2007
Oregonians would get to vote on amending the state's "double majority" requirements for tax measures, under a resolution that passed the House on Thursday on a 46-11 vote and is headed to the Senate.
The double majority was added to the Oregon Constitution in 1996. Measures to raise property taxes need not just a majority vote, but also voter turnout of at least 50 percent of registered voters.
If turnout falls below that threshold, the measure fails.
The proposed fix would eliminate the double majority requirement in elections held in May and November, which backers said would give school districts and local governments two fair shots each year at passing a tax measure on its merits.
House Majority Leader Dave Hunt, D-Gladstone, said the current system concentrates too much power in the hands of nonvoters, who have on occasion campaigned to persuade people not to vote, to tamp down turnout.
"The will of a majority of voters should carry the day," Hunt said.
Backers of the double majority call it a safeguard against allowing a minority of motivated voters to put a financial burden on an entire community. And they say it helps guard against "sneak attack" elections, when cities or school districts put a measure on the ballot with little warning.
Hunt and others said that since the advent of vote by mail, there's no such thing as a low-profile Oregon election.
If the resolution passes, it would be on the ballot in November 2008.