Conventional wisdom holds that ballot initiatives listed at the top of the ballot are more likely to pass than those listed at the bottom (slothful voters get tired of reading or confused and tend to vote no). Because Gov. Brown's tax initiative was certified late, it would have ended up on the bottom, below Molly Munger's competing tax initiative.
In order to finagle his initiative to the top and increase its chances of success, the legislature recently changed the law on how initiatives are ranked. Now, initiatives dealing with bond measures and constitutional issues are given priority--which would place the Governor's initiative at the top of the ballot.
This legal wrangling, which was decried by competing tax measures and anti-tax groups was recently upheld in court.
