The giant retailer is pulling a Prop. 16, seeking to get the voters to overturn a measure forcing online retailers to collect sales tax. Of course, the law simply levels the playing field for smaller businesses and brick-and-mortar stores — but Amazon’s got plenty of cash, and anyone with enough cash can put anything on the California ballot.
Brian at Calitics points out that Amazon can campaign by asking people to vote against taxes — always a good strategy in this strange state where a majority of the populace seems to believe it can have it all for free:
Beating back such a referendum will be a very tough fight on some uphill terrain. That isn’t to say that there won’t be those who will try. Some of the biggest backers of the Amazon legislation in the first place have some pretty big pockets, like, um, Walmart, Barnes & Noble, and Best Buy. And it is true that the legislation benefits big box stores, but it also benefits the few remaining small retailers. And while the big box stores are (very, very) far (extremely far) from perfect, at least they do provide jobs to local communities.
So we may have a campaign that puts some big, awful corporations on the side of every small business in California — all of them supporting a tax increase. I wonder where the California Chamber of Commerce will go on this one.
At any rate, it’s going to be a huge, expensive, bloody battle, one that will get national attention. And that may not be the best thing for Amazon. PG&E got hammered when it tried to do a blatant self-interested campaign. Amazon could get hammered, too. And there will be plenty of legislators in other cash-hungry states watching the result very carefully.