Friday, August 26, 2011

Abusing The Law

California passed an "Amazon tax" law, and true to its word, Amazon ended its relationship will all California affiliates so that it would not have a "nexus" in California and hence would not have to collect state taxes for California. Amazon is funding an initiative to overturn the tax collection law, but some are seeking to overturn that initiative before it even gets passed into a new law:
Supporters of the new law, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., still have a major challenge: The new bill is a so-called urgency measure and needs support from two-thirds of the membership of both houses of the Legislature.

According to the state Constitution, urgency bills are not subject to being repealed by a referendum.

Consequently, the large retailers, which provide financial support for many Republican candidates in the Legislature, have to persuade at least three GOP members in the Senate and two in the Assembly to vote for the Internet sales tax collection.
Does this issue sound "urgent" to you, or are some businesses and their bought-and-paid-for legislators abusing the "urgency measure" law just to get what they want?

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