** Late yesterday, the Montana supreme court unanimously upheld the lower court’s decision to invalidate Initiative 154 because of pervasive fraud.
** Speaking of fraud, one of Howard Rich’s key shell organizations, Chicago-based Americans for Limited Government, has been operating without a license to do business for almost 9 months. ALG has pumped well over a million in cash into the property ballot measures. It’s not clear yet what the legal ramifications of this discovery will be.
** In Washington, support for Initiative 933 appears to be crumbling. Over at the Stranger’s blog, Josh Feit says that new poll numbers show the measure down by 38 to 42. Just a few weeks ago, the same polling firm put the measure at 47 to 31 in favor. So support has weakend by 9 points, while opposition has vaulted up by 9. Undecided voters—still a whopping 20 percent—will make all the difference.
** Also in Washington, a new report (pdf) from the Economic Opportunity Institute puts some context on I-933’s price tag of roughly $8 billion. What else could residents do with the money? How about this:
Currently there are 593,000 people in our state who lack health insurance. Health coverage for these people (through the BHP in which the state splits the cost of coverage with each individual) would cost the public $1.14 billion a year.
And the report has many other good examples of what you can buy for $8 billion. It’s a great summary of the financial consequences.
UPDATE 10/31/06: A new poll has Idaho’s Proposition 2 within the margin of error: 39 percent no; 37 percent yes. 24 percent are still undecided.
