In the latest turn of events relevant to California’s move to force out-of-state, online-only retailers to collect and remit to it California sales taxes– an effort that legal experts say is likely unconstitutional– Golden State liberals are pursuing a new legislative scheme to invalidate a referendum that appears headed to the ballot and which would nix the “Amazon Tax.”

From the Sacramento Bee:

A group of California legislators plans to push a new online sales tax bill in a move to thwart tax opponent Amazon.com.

Lawmakers today used a “gut-and-amend” procedure that takes an existing bill and substitutes an online sales tax measure. The bill passed the Senate Appropriations Committee today.

In late June, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill requiring Amazon and other online retailers to begin collecting sales tax on California transactions. The bill passed on a regular, majority vote. Amazon has refused to collect the tax and launched a referendum to have it overturned.

But Larry Levin, a spokesman for Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Oakland, said the new legislation would be different. It would pass on a two-thirds supermajority and would carry an “urgency” clause. That means it can’t be subject to ballot referendum, Levin said.

Backers of the legislation reportedly believe they can get two-thirds of each chamber to vote for the bill in question.  Skeptics however charge that that will be tough in light of Republican numbers in both chambers, and GOP opposition to the “Amazon Tax” already exhibited during previous legislative battles.

Proponents of the tax increase will need to get the support of three GOP members in the Senate and two in the Assembly to clear the two-thirds majority hurdle.

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In the aftermath of the California legislature passing and Gov. Jerry Brown signing into law an “Amazon Tax,” it looks like taxpayers unhappy about the Golden State’s pursuit of the almost certainly unconstitutional measure may get an opportunity to kill it off.

According to KQED, this week, a formal request for a referendum to overturn the law was filed in Sacramento.  In order to make it on the ballot, backers will have to get something in the range of 500,000 signatures once the petition is cleared by the state’s Attorney General.  One question that will need to be settled is whether the referendum is allowed in view of the fact that the Amazon Tax was included in the budget, but signs point to this being a possibility.

According to Amazon.com Vice President Paul Misener, “This is a referendum on jobs and investment in California.  As Governor Brown has made clear, it is important to directly involve the citizens of California in key issues and we believe that Californians will want to vote to protect small business and keep jobs in the state.”

If placed on the ballot, the referendum could have a good chance of success.

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Last week, I highlighted nine ballot initiatives that were worth watching because of their policy implications and/or their role is showing whether voters wanted more or less freedom. The results, by and large, are very encouraging. Let’s take a look at the results of those nine votes, as well as a few additional key initiatives.

1. The big spenders wanted to impose an income tax in the state of Washington, and they even had support from too-rich-to-care Bill Gates. The good news is that this initiative got slaughtered by a nearly two-to-one margin.  I was worried about this initiative since crazy  Oregon voters approved higher tax rates earlier this year. In a further bit of good news, Washington voters also approved a supermajority requirement for tax increases by a similar margin.

2. Nevada voters had a chance to vote on eminent domain abuse. This is an initiative that I mischaracterized in my original post. The language made it sound like it was designed to protect private property, but it actually was proposed by the political elite to weaken a property rights initiative that the voters previously had imposed. Fortunately, Nevada voters did not share my naiveté and the effort to weaken eminent domain protections was decisively rejected.  This is important, of course, because of the Supreme Court’s reprehensible Kelo decision.

3. California voters were predictably disappointing. They rejected the initiative to legalize marijuana, thus missing an opportunity to adopt a more sensible approach to victimless crimes. The crazy voters from the Golden State also kept in place a suicidal global warming scheme that is driving jobs out of the state. The only silver lining in California’s dark cloud is that voters did approve a supermajority requirement for certain revenue increases.

4. Nearly 90 percent of voters in Kansas approved an initiative to remove any ambiguity about whether individuals have the right to keep and bear arms. Let that be a warning to those imperialist Canadians, just in case they’re plotting an invasion.

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