Taxpayers Should Be Able to Sue the Government! Support CACR 15 to Reinstate Taxpayer Standing!
CACR 15 proposes a Constitutional amendment enabling taxpayers to bring judgments against the government.
Granite State Taxpayers supported such an amendment (then numbered CACR 5) in June 2015.
The New Hampshire Union Leader agreed in an editorial on October 26, 2015.
Taxpayer lawsuits have proceeded in New Hampshire for a century and a half.
Prior to 2010, the NH Supreme Court position was that “every taxpayer has a vital interest in and a right to the preservation of an orderly and lawful government regardless of whether his purse is immediately touched.”
In 2010, the Court decision in Baer v. NH Department of Education severely limited the ability of taxpayers, and groups representing them, to bring legal action by denying them standing in the legal process.
The Legislature in 2012 passed legislation amending RSA 491.22 to reestablish Taxpayer standing.
In 2014, in Duncan v. the State of New Hampshire, the Court ruled standing violated the State Constitution.
The Constitutional Amendment proposed in CACR 15 would respond to and overturn the Duncan case of 2014.
Click here to read arguments by GST Member Chuck Douglas against the Duncan decision.
CACR 15 provides that a taxpayer who is eligible to vote in the state has standing to petition the court to declare whether the state or the political subdivision in which the taxpayer resides has spent funds in violation of a law, ordinance, or constitutional provision.
CACR 15 would add the following words to Article 8 of the Bill of Rights of the New Hampshire Constitution:
The public also has a right to an orderly, lawful, and accountable government Therefore, any individual taxpayer eligible to vote in the State shall have standing to petition the Superior Court to declare whether the State or political subdivision in which the taxpayer resides has spent, or has approved spending, public funds in violation of a law, ordinance, or constitutional provision. In such a case, the taxpayer shall not have to demonstrate that his or her personal rights were impaired or prejudiced beyond his or her status as a taxpayer.
Click here read and download CACR 15.
House Judiciary Committee review is 10:30 AM Tuesday 1/30/18, Legislative Office Building Room 208.
Join us there to support CACR 15 and the Taxpayer’s Right to due process.