Challengers sought review of the legal sufficiency of Attorney General’s certified ballot title for an initiative petition regarding taxes on tobacco products.
The Supreme Court of Oregon held that:
- Ballot title’s proposed caption that stated that proposed initiative would “increase cigarette taxes” was legally insufficient;
- Any reference in caption to the amount of proposed increase in the cigarette tax had to be expressed in terms of an amount per pack, not an amount per cigarette;
- Caption and “result of ‘yes’ vote” statement were not required to state that the measure applied retroactively;
- Proposed initiative would not necessarily increase taxes on cigars;
- Caption and “result of ‘yes’ vote” statement were not misleading in mentioning only limitations on the uses of revenue from cigarette taxes; and
- Ballot title’s summary was not required to state that initiative would reduce revenue for entities that relied on existing cigarette-tax revenue.