Sounding Out Idaho Tax-Limiting Initiative Loses Ground In Poll

Support for the property-tax-limiting One Percent Initiative has dropped to a dead heat, according to a new poll.

“It’s tightened up,” said Del Ali, vice president of Mason-Dixon Political/Media Research. “It’s clear it’s losing support.”

The firm conducted the poll Oct. 8-10 for The Idaho Spokesman-Review, KHQ-TV and KTVB-TV. It queried 834 likely Idaho voters.

Forty-one percent said they favor the initiative, while 39 percent were against and 20 percent were undecided.

As the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent, that’s too close to call.

In a similar poll last month, the initiative was ahead by 10 points, 46 percent to 36 percent.

Ali said undecided voters tend to vote against ballot initiatives, particularly measures that are complicated or confusing.

Initiative author Ron Rankin blamed the poll results on campaigning by the proposal’s opponents, who have formed Idahoans Against the 1% and have spent more than $100,000 to fight the measure over the last three months.

“They’ve had this full-court press with their hit men running up and down the state,” Rankin said. “I’m elated that we were able to hold our own before we had our offensive.”

Rankin’s big push will come next week when he’ll run special advertising sections in newspapers across the state promoting the initiative.

He was busy Wednesday delivering the 320,000 tabloids to newspapers - “three U-Haul trailers full of papers,” he said.

Steve Millard, treasurer of Idahoans Against the 1%, said his group started running television ads statewide last week.

“We’ve barely begun our campaign,” Millard said. “It’s going to get better.”

Rankin’s group has raised $25,082 for its campaign, and spent $14,422, according to campaign finance reports filed with the secretary of state. It has received mostly smaller contributions from individuals in Idaho and Washington.

Idahoans Against 1% has raised $170,464, and spent $107,658, including $86,827 for advertising. Its biggest backers include the Idaho Education Association, $50,000; Idaho Hospital Association, $20,000; Idaho Association of Realtors, $10,000; and Union Pacific Railroad Co., $7,500.

Steve Ahrens, director of the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry, a statewide business lobby, said businesses would get the biggest tax break under the initiative, but they oppose it because it would “turn the tax system on its ear.”

Opponents say the initiative’s cuts in property taxes, and requirement that the state general fund replace property taxes now spent on schools, will force increases in other taxes.

Rankin says the state can make cuts and absorb the loss.

The poll also showed support holding firm for Proposition 4, a measure calling for a constitutional amendment to set term limits for members of Congress.

Fifty-seven percent favored the term limits measure, with 30 percent opposed and 13 percent undecided. That’s virtually unchanged from similar polls in September and May.

“It just reflects where Idaho voters have been all along on this issue,” said Donna Weaver, campaign chairman.

Idaho voters approved a sweeping term limits initiative for local, state and federal offices in 1994, but the U.S. Supreme Court held that only a constitutional amendment can impose term limits on Congress.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: Many aren’t sure about One Percent