This year's do-it-yourself laws.

• Author: Rhyme, Nancy
• Position: Initiatives and referenda

IN THE 24 STATES THAT PERMIT THE INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM, DOZENS OF BALLOT ISSUES ARE UP FOR THE VOTERS' CONSIDERATION.

Voters in nearly half the states will do more than just choose their elected officials this November. They will make their own laws through initiatives and referenda.

Candidates will share the ballots with a possible 144 ballot questions in 24 states. Fiscal issues and term limitations are the most common this year. Fiscal questions--including tax, budget and bond issues--are perennial favorites. Term limitations have been near the top of the list since voters in California, Colorado and Oklahoma approved the first such initiatives in 1990.

Another Big Year for Tax Initiatives

The November ballots will again be loaded with tax questions, and this year an unusually large number of them are anti-tax measures. Observers give some of them a good chance of passing.

Anti-tax forces believe they have found a successful formula for limiting taxes by copying the Arizona and Colorado measures that passed in 1992. Florida, Missouri, Montana and Oregon will decide whether to require voter approval for all future state tax increases. In addition, Florida, Montana, Nevada and Oregon voters will decide separate measures that would require a two-thirds supermajority vote in the legislatures to raise taxes.

Colorado is the only state that now requires voter approval for all tax increases. In the first test of the measure, Coloradans declined in 1993 to extend a special 0.1 percent sales tax on tourist-related items like ski lift tickets, hotel rooms and rental cars. Colorado lawmakers interpreted this defeat as a sign that future tax proposals would face rough sledding.

Nine states currently have supermajority requirements for tax increases. Arkansas has required a two-thirds legislative vote since 1934; Arizona and Oklahoma voters added it in 1992.

Only one state--South Dakota--is likely to have a property tax limitation on the November ballot. The South Dakota measure would roll back property taxes to 1 percent of market value and freeze tax valuations at current levels. The only time property valuations could rise for tax purposes would be when a property is sold. This measure would be even more stringent than California's Proposition 13, which allowed 2 percent annual growth in taxable values.

The changing focus of anti-tax measures reflects structural changes in tax systems over the last 15 years. In the late 1970s and early 1980s...