O-SenseIf a group of college friends – who have started a citizen petition drive – can get their $1.50-per-pack cigarette tax hike on the 2016 ballot, the money going to cut public college tuition in Idaho, they have a very good chance of it passing the citizen vote, a new Idaho Politics Weekly poll shows.
The movement is just getting started. And Idaho lawmakers have made the bar high to get any initiative petition on the ballot.
But a new survey by Dan Jones & Associates finds support across the board for such a tax hike – and for where the new funds would go: Reducing college tuition.
You can read about the petition effort in this Spokesman-Review article.
Jones finds that if the tobacco tax hike were on the ballot today, 65 percent of Idahoans would “definitely” or “probably” vote for it.
Thirty-two percent would vote against such a tax hike. And 4 percent didn’t know.
Some poll numbers:
-- Idaho Republicans support such a tuition-cutting/tobacco hike tax, 65-32 percent.
-- Democrats support it, 78-17 percent.
-- And political independents support it, 60-36 percent.
Men and women usually are similar in their opinions on public policy issues; Jones has found in years of polling in the West.
But not in this case.
Men support such a tobacco tax hike for tuition reduction, 57-38 percent.
But women are really for it, 71-25 percent.
Idahoans ages 18-29 – those who soon face college tuition, are paying it now, or just got done paying it, are really for the tobacco tax hike, found Jones.
Eighty percent of that age group favor the petition and would vote for it, only 14 percent of that age group opposes it.
It will not be easy for the backers – who have never run a citizen petition in the state before – to get such a tax hike/tuition cut on the ballot.
It takes 47,000 signatures with at least 6 percent spread in 18 of 35 legislative districts to qualify.
But backers say the state’s universities and colleges are also geographically located across the state – and that getting volunteers and signatures from folks living in and around those higher education institutions will make their task easier.
