1992 vote comes back to haunt lawmakers
A legislative supermajority requirement for tax increases is the reason lawmakers must return for a second special session, Senate Majority Floor Leader Greg Treat said Tuesday.
Treat, R-Oklahoma City; House Speaker Charles McCall, R-Atoka; Senate Minority Leader John Sparks, D-Norman; and House Minority Leader Elect Steve Kouplen, D-Beggs, spoke at a public affairs forum sponsored by the Oklahoma State Chamber at the Cox Convention Center.
Passed by voters in 1992, State Question 640 requires that tax increases be approved by a supermajority — 75 percent — in both legislative chambers, or by a vote of the people. Lawmakers have never been able to attain that threshold since the law's passage.
Legislators are expected to return to the Capitol on Monday for a second special session to plug budget holes after the Oklahoma Supreme Court said they illegally passed a $1.50 a pack cigarette tax without a supermajority and called it a fee to get around that requirement.
Kouplen said the inability to garner a supermajority for tax hikes has resulted in an increase in a lot of fees, because increasing a fee requires only a majority.
But many people don't make a distinction between a fee and a tax, Kouplen said.
In the upcoming regular session, which starts in February, legislators could consider measures to let voters reconsider the supermajority requirement by either eliminating it altogether or reducing it.
Kouplen said if the law created by State Question 640 is to be altered, it should take the same percentage of votes to raise taxes as it does to reduce taxes.
Sparks agreed, saying there has been a “land run” on fees that aren't used to improve business regulation but to fund government in general.
A number of tax cuts, credits and incentives, along with depressed oil prices, have contributed to the state’s poor budget picture.
In an effort to garner the needed votes to raise the cigarette tax, which a majority of Oklahomans support, lawmakers in the past special session had to agree to consider additional tax hikes, Treat said.
For Republicans to attract Democratic support for a hike in the cigarette tax, they had to offer votes to increase the gross production tax on the oil and gas industry. The intent of State Question 640 has been “turned on its head,” Treat said.
SQ 640 also makes business incentives more of a target, Treat said.