Sizemore has seen polls showing Measure 91 will be defeated if voters believe it does apply retroactively to this budget period. Sizemore is backpedaling because he is clearly worried. Sizemore admits his measure, repealing the cap on the deduction of federal income taxes from state income taxes, is drafted to apply to the present budget period, but he now says his attorney has told him that a U.S. Supreme Court decision prevents that. This is not Sizemore s decision to make. No state agency can act on legal advice from a private attorney.
Agencies can act only on advice from the attorney general.
Acting on any other legal advice subjects government officials to personal liability if the advice turns out to be wrong and injures someone. Unfortunately, Sizemore is exempt from legal liability for any damage his initiative might cause, precisely because he is a citizen and not a public official. The new confusion over what Measure 91 really says is a lesson in the weakness of using the initiative process for writing complicated tax law. Sizemore appears determined to repeat his Measure 47 fiasco. That 1996 measure, further limiting property taxes and rolling back assessments, had to be rewritten by the Legislature to avoid unintended financial consequences because Sizemore and his lawyers really did not know what they were doing.