By Marie Price
The Journal Record (excerpt)
Signatures and petion circulators questioned
OKLAHOMA CITY – Attorneys for both sides of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights ballot proposal are scheduled to appear before an Oklahoma Supreme Court referee beginning Thursday to argue their cases.
Opponents have challenged both the content of the proposal and the petition drive launched to put the issue to a vote of the people.
Under Oklahoma law, challenges to the initiative must be wrapped up at least 60 days before the November general election, or it will have to be placed on a later ballot.
Gary Jones, chairman of STOP State Question 726, a major anti-TABOR group, expressed optimism Tuesday that the challengers will prevail in questioning enough signatures to keep TABOR off the ballot.
He said the challenge alleging that the measure unconstitutionally covers more than one subject may be tougher.
“In the state of Oklahoma, the Supreme Court has a real high litmus test in throwing out state questions on constitutional issues,” he said. “But we believe that if they read the constitution and follow it strictly by the letter of the law, this constitutional question violates the constitution.”
Posted at 6/14/2006 08:40:00 AM
