Sounding Out Idaho Many Still Undecided On Tax Measure 40 Percent Favor, 41 Percent Oppose One Percent Initiative

Voters are split nearly evenly on the One Percent Initiative, a new poll shows, but an unusually large group remains undecided.

Conventional wisdom holds that undecided voters tend to vote against a ballot measure, but this case may be different.

The poll shows that 40 percent of likely Idaho voters favor the initiative, 41 percent are opposed and 19 percent are undecided. That’s tightened since September, when a similar poll had the initiative leading by 10 points.

The One Percent Initiative would cap property taxes, shift public school funding to other state taxes and limit increases in local governments’ budgets. It would force a major rejiggering of Idaho’s tax structure, which now relies roughly equally on property, income and sales taxes.

Such a complex measure usually is thought to put off undecided voters.

But Jim Weatherby, a Boise State University political science professor, said this initiative could defy conventional wisdom.

“If there are that many undecided, they may vote no and it will fail. But on the other hand, there may be a lot of people who aren’t real forthcoming on their vote on this one, and will vote yes on Election Day.”

That’s Ron Rankin’s theory, too. Rankin, author of the initiative, has maintained that people won’t admit to supporting his initiative because it’s “politically incorrect.”

“When you have the school boards, the state Board of Education, the universities and so on (opposing the initiative), nobody wants to appear to be against education,” Rankin said. “People don’t want to appear to be for something this controversial or less than politically correct.”

Steve Ahrens, who’s on the board of Idahoans Against One Percent, said of the numbers, “I don’t know what to make of it, frankly.”

“The course of the campaign has gone well,” he said. “The coalition that’s come together to oppose the initiative for a variety of reasons represents virtually every kind of business and organization in Idaho. So I still remain confident the initiative will fail.”

Ahrens noted that the last three polls taken together show a continuing drop in support for the initiative, and a rise in opposition. The number of undecided voters has remained roughly the same.

The latest poll was conducted last Sunday and Monday for The Idaho Spokesman-Review and two television stations.

“To me, it’s a horse race,” Rankin said. “I think we’re good for probably two-thirds of the undecided…. That would do it.”

Voters approved an earlier version of the One Percent Initiative in 1978, but it couldn’t be implemented as written and instead led to a series of limits on local governments’ property tax budgets. A second version failed overwhelmingly in 1992, and Rankin wasn’t able to gather enough signatures to get a 1994 version on the ballot.

This year, he used paid signature gatherers to help boost the measure onto the ballot.

Another initiative, which seeks to pressure elected officials into enacting a constitutional amendment limiting congressional terms, also used paid signature gatherers to win a spot on the ballot this year.

Support for the term limits initiative held steady in the new poll, at 59 percent yes, 29 percent no and 12 percent undecided. Pollster Del Ali, vice president of Mason-Dixon Political/Media Research, said it’s almost certain to pass.

That measure follows Idahoans’ strong approval two years ago of an initiative limiting terms of elected officials from the school board all the way up to Congress. The limits on Congress were ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, so Idaho now has term limits only for local and state offices.

The 1994 term limits measure, sponsored by U.S. Term Limits Inc., was the first to make extensive use of paid signature-gathering to get an initiative on the Idaho ballot.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: Minds aren’t made up about One Percent