What better way for Oregon legislators to show they are in touch with their constituents than to play tricks on them with taxes?

Some legislators can be absolute magicians when it comes to making a tax disappear. In 2017, legislators changed the way some corporate income was calculated. Senate Bill 28 increased the money the state collected. But guess what? Legislators declared it was not a tax.

Like any good performer, legislators don’t use the same old trick every time. Also in 2017, they were faced with the challenge of getting voters to support more taxes for the state Medicaid program. But rather than be straightforward with voters, they called the tax an “assessment” to fuzzy up what was going on.

Then this year when legislators were trying to get a complicated carbon-pricing bill through the short session, they pulled another trick. The bill itself declared it was not a tax bill. The bill said it is not the Legislature’s intent that it is a “bill for raising revenue.” Never mind that it would have brought revenue in for the state to spend.

What makes these a-tax-is-not-a-tax tricks the Legislature plays all the more galling is that voters sent a clear message that they didn’t want such games. Voters passed Ballot Measure 25 in May 1996. It amended the Constitution to require a three-fifths majority in the Legislature to pass revenue-raising bills. But instead of meeting that requirement, legislators pull tricks so tax bills are not technically tax bills.

Our Oregon, a group representing unions, and Oregon AFSCME filed petitions last November to make it easier for the Legislature to get away with this behavior. The first proposed ballot measure would have limited the three-fifths requirement to income tax increases. The second would have repealed the three-fifths vote requirement altogether. The good news is the groups withdrew them earlier this month.

Better news still is that a third ballot measure that attempts to put an end to the legislative trickery may make it on the ballot. It would clarify that “raising revenue” means raising revenue. Even the would-be Houdinis in the Legislature should have trouble wriggling out of that. Sign the petition for Initiative 31 if you get a chance.