Challenge likely as Seattle opts to add tax on gun, ammunition sales

[CTyankee]

79. They would sure have to find a firm precendent to do so.

Let's look at the evolution of the poll tax.

The 24th Amendment, ratified in 1964, abolished the use of the poll tax (or any other tax) as a pre-condition for voting in federal elections,[13] but made no mention of poll taxes in state elections.

In the 1966 case of Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, the Supreme Court overruled its decision in Breedlove v. Suttles, and extended the prohibition of poll taxes to state elections. It declared that the imposition of a poll tax in state elections violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The Harper ruling was one of several that relied on the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment rather than the more direct provision of the 15th Amendment. In a two-month period in the spring of 1966, Federal courts declared unconstitutional poll tax laws in the last four states that still had them, starting with Texas on 9 February. Decisions followed for Alabama (3 March) and Virginia (25 March). Mississippi's $2.00 poll tax (equal to $14.54 in 2013) was the last to fall, declared unconstitutional on 8 April 1966, by a federal panel.[14] Virginia attempted to partially abolish its poll tax by requiring a residence certification, but the Supreme Court rejected the arrangement i