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A short quote from the February 2007 edition of Bench and Bar:

Last year’s proposed amendment to the state constitution to increase transportation funding attracted a majority of voters and a lawsuit to boot. The measure, which will add some $300 million annually to state transit and highway budgets, was approved by a solid 58.8 percent of the voters at the polls last November.

But before it reached the electorate, the proposition had to withstand a legal challenge by a bipartisan coalition of 13 legislators from Greater Minnesota, teachers, and agriculture groups. They were fearful that reallocating funds to transportation will reduce money for school and rural needs.

They petitioned the state Supreme Court to bar from the ballot the proposal that would require the Legislature to use at least 40 percent of the revenue from the 6.5 percent motor vehicle sales tax for mass transit projects and “no more than 60 percent for highways.” The challengers asserted that the language of the so-called Transportation Amendment was confusing and should be stricken from the ballot, claims supporters of the measure deemed hysterical.

Transportation Terminology

The Transportation Amendment, approved last spring by both houses of the Legislature, proposed to amend Article IV of the Constitution by requiring allocation of “not more than 60 percent” of revenue from the motor vehicle sales tax for highways and “not less than 40 percent” for public transportation. The question, as framed on the ballot, was whether the Minnesota Constitution should be amended so that the tax revenue “is dedicated at least 40 percent for public transit assistance and not more than 60 percent for highway purposes.”