Rick Weiland is still collecting signatures for his proposed constitutional amendments to protect initiative and referendum rights, but Mike Mueller, Julie Frye-Mueller, and Matt Smith have given no signal that they are continuing to push their initiative petition past the assumed May 5 deadline. The Black Hills-based sponsors of the measure to abolish property tax and write a $1.50 retail transaction tax into the constitution have let their website, www.abolishpropertytaxessd.com, go Wix-dead, and they have issued no statements on social media.
Evidently, people may be unhappy about rising property taxes, but they aren’t unhappy enough to produce 35,017 petition signatures in six months, let alone sink local government budgets and impose a radically regressive tax on groceries and other purchases on top of state and local sales taxes. Perhaps that lack of enthusiasm for the Muellers’ tax swap aligns with the unpopularity of the Governor’s plan to ease property taxes by raising property taxes. And perhaps that lack of enthusiasm bodes well for the other tax petition circulating, the referendum drive to kill Senate Bill 245, which would pour reserves this year and increased sales tax next year and thereafter into property tax relief.