A (smart) reader recently sent me an e-mail that had no text but her signature and a succinct subject line: “Whatever happened to the tobacco tax? Did it pass or not?”
And the answer is just as succinct (though not quite as clear): we’re not sure.
Two weeks following the California primaries, the deeply covered and hotly contested proposition — opposers of the proposition spent an exorbitant $47 million while the supporters spent $12 million — to add a dollar tax to the existing $0.87 tax imposed on a pack of cigarettes remains far too close to call — particularly after a counting of absentee ballots shrunk the margin from from 68,000 more votes in opposition to the proposition to just about 17,500 come Tuesday. As of yesterday, the Secretary of State claims that some 300,000 additional ballots remain to be counted.
The decision could affect other states’ decisions on cigarette taxes, including Georgia’s similar one-dollar hike that would raise what is currently the nation’s lowest cigarette tax rate — $0.17 — to $1.17 should it pass the support of voters come November.
The Secretary of State will continue to post up-to-date ballot counts as the day progresses.