Apparently, the ballots for last November's weren't properly copy-edited, with the tax imposed by Proposition 203 listed as $.80$ cents and not the eighty cents that would result by multiplying a four cent per cigarette tax by twenty.
I hate to say it, and I doubt that his motives are pure (he's a tobacco-prohibitionist crusader who is so wrapped up in the subject he even had the audacity to speak on it and not civil liberties when invited to address an ACLU function) but Terry Goddard is right about this one. The real tax was made clear prior to the election, including by the publicity pamphlet sent to every voter at taxpayer expense.
As I've been saying for quite some time now, there's no way to get the state off of one's back by magic words and loopholes. Even if, such as in the case of 2004's ill-fated No Taxpayer Money for Politicans drive, champions of state power use the same tactics against us with success. Winning requires recognition that it's not a fair game.
