Court Opinion

ID: 9591298
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:03:32.914022+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:09.467368
License: Public Domain

FADELEY, J.,
specially concurring.
I agree with the majority that the certified ballot title must be modified to inform the voters of the initiative measure’s impact on existing tax revenues and on the state general fund which now uses and relies on those revenues to support numerous state programs. Among those programs are the criminal justice system (including corrections), education, and medical care for the poor and aged.
If the proposed measure takes full effect, existing tobacco tax revenues of $126 million per biennium will be *508diverted from the state general fund to the limited uses specified in the measure. Additional tobacco tax revenues generated from tax increases that the measure mandates are estimated to be much less than half as much as the loss to the general fund resulting from the diversion of existing tax revenues. The tax increase revenues do not replace the lost general fund dollars. The increases are also dedicated to the limited uses specified in the measure.
This measure is one of two initiated by the same chief sponsor. The other measure, which involves revenues from taxes on alcoholic beverages, is the subject of a companion ballot title review decided in Aughenbaugh v. Roberts, 309 Or 510, 789 P2d 656 (1990). That measure repeats the same procedure — diverting existing general fund revenues, generating new revenues by increasing “tax” rates some, and then dedicating both the old and the new revenue streams to the limited uses specified in the initiative.
If these two measures are approved by the people, the combined loss of revenues now relied upon by the general fund would, for example, equal 70 percent of the current State Corrections Department budget. The amount of the loss to the general fund from the two initiatives, if adopted, is more than all direct property tax relief programs, including Home Owner and Renter relief, Senior Deferral, and Targeted Offsets for school districts in the safety net. Legislative Fiscal Office, Corrected Summary of Legislative Adopted 1989-91 Budget, 11 (Aug. 1989). The major portion of this loss comes from the diversion of existing tobacco taxes.
The modified ballot title Caption and Question do not advise the voter of this significant loss of general fund revenue, let alone advise them that the diversion of existing tax funds from the general fund is greater in dollar amount than from the tax increase. Instead only the tax increase is mentioned.
The modified ballot title Summary does advise the people of a reduction in general fund revenues. However, many or most Oregon voters will not find the Summary printed on their ballots, nor will there be an estimate of financial effects printed on those ballots. See ORS 254.175. But the Caption and Question will be printed on the voter’s ballot. Id. Thus, the cursory though correct reference which, under the *509court’s opinion, will only appear in the Summary will utterly fail to effectively advise Oregon voters of what this measure would actually accomplish. They should have that information.
The initiative measure involves both diversion of existing revenues from the general fund and an increase in tax rates. The measure dedicates these combined revenues entirely to unknown programs, described in general terms only as “smoker related” or “health related.” The Caption and Question should reflect these chief purposes and subjects.
A ballot title’s Caption and Question may reflect dual chief purposes or subjects. See Reed v. Roberts, 304 Or 649, 655, 748 P2d 542 (1988). Here, the modified Caption and Question are silent on a chief purpose or subject as measured by the most significant fiscal impact of the initiative proposal, i.e., the loss of existing tobacco tax revenues to the general fund.1 I cannot support what remains inadequate information for the voters.
Van Hoomissen, J., joins this special concurring opinion.

 A critic should accept the responsibility to show how the thing criticized may be better done. In that spirit, I suggest:
CAPTION: DIVERTS TOBACCO TAXES FROM GENERAL FUND; INCREASES TAXES
QUESTION: Shall cigarette and tobacco taxes be diverted from general fund and increased to fund new smoker and general health programs?