Missouri judge weighing cigarette tax hike ballot proposal

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Lawyers working to keep a measure to raise Missouri's lowest-in-the-nation cigarette tax to benefit early childhood education on the Nov. 8 ballot attempted to fend off three lawsuits filed against the proposal during a Friday court hearing.

Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem must weigh whether to throw out the measure, which has been a magnet for criticism.

It would raise the cigarette tax from 17 cents to 77 cents a pack by 2020.

The proposal also would create a 67-cent-per-pack "equity" fee that would increase annually for inflation on off-brand cigarettes not included in the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement.

The ballot initiative has been bankrolled largely by cigarette giant Reynolds American Inc. because it could end a price advantage for smaller companies.

The Missouri Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association political-action committee and smaller tobacco companies also financed an initiative for a tax hike of 23 cents per pack to go toward transportation infrastructure.

The measure automatically would be repealed if other tobacco-tax measures are certified for local or statewide ballots.

It also is set to be on the Nov. 8 ballot. A lawsuit against it was filed Thursday.

Primarily at issue in the case Beetem heard Friday is Secretary of State Jason Kander's decision to certify the ballot measure, despite a Missouri appeals court ruling in July the initiative's summary was insufficient and unfair. It failed to say one of the measure's new fees could rise annually with inflation.

Chuck Hatfield, a lawyer representing tobacco-store owners who are trying to get the higher tax measure off the ballot, argued none of the signatures gathered to get it on the ballot should count because voters signed petitions with that summary language.

Backers of the measure said the full language was on the petition voters signed, and the correct summary will be on the ballot.

Voters could read the full measure before signing and might have understood "if you were a lawyer," Hatfield said.

"But people don't read the fine print," he told reporters after court, "and it's misleading to tell them something in a summary that isn't correct."

Opponents also raised questions about the measure's constitutionality.

Attorney Edward Greim, who submitted the tobacco-tax proposal for education, told Beetem it's the will of voters who signed the petition to keep it on the ballot.

"What's really at stake are the rights of every single person who wants to vote on this petition," he said.