Stateline.org reports that taxpayers in more states will be voting on revenue increases. Tight budgets, several years of spending cuts and continued economic sluggishness explain part of the trend. But, more important than these, in several states voters have tied lawmakers hands by requiring legislative supermajorities or voter approval for tax increases. Also implicated is a changing political dynamic.

Those obstacles [to tax increases] include supermajority requirements and other rules that make it particularly difficult to raise taxes. They also include a Republican Party that has become more united in opposition to tax hikes at the same time that it enjoys control of either the governorship or at least one house of the legislature in 39 states. In that context, supporters of higher taxes have begun to wonder whether going directly to the ballot is now the easiest way — and perhaps even the only politically plausible way — to raise taxes.

“Easiest” doesn’t mean easy, as Washington state demonstrated.

For example, in Washington State last year, voters comfortably rejected an initiative to create a new income tax. At the same time, they easily approved an initiative to require a two-thirds threshold for tax increases to pass in the legislature.

In California, the last tax increase to pass on the ballot was a 2004 initiative to raise income taxes on the rich to pay for mental health services. Since then, several efforts have failed including a package in 2009 supported by then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. That measure only managed to win 35 percent of the vote, even though it was coupled with a state spending cap and enjoyed the support of the state chamber of commerce.

The frame for the Stateline story is an upcoming Colorado vote to raise both the income and the sales tax. If the plan succeeds in the state with the most stringent tax and spending limits, interest groups in other states – California and Nevada are cited – may follow suit.

The supermajority requirement here faces a court challenge. Still, I’d expect legislators to refer any significant tax increase to the voters.