When voters read the blue book explaining the ballot initiatives this November it’s safe to assume they won’t all be engrossed to the end. In all likelihood most probably won’t read past the first sentence. After all, the Pew Center on the States found it takes a PhD level education to fully grasp the language.

All of which is to say the billion dollar tax increase is screwed.

To understand why, you simply have to look at the language voters will be reading when they receive their ballots.

Here’s the language voters saw about Prop 103 in 2011, which lost 63-37:

And, per Floyd Ciruli, here is the language that voters will see on their ballot this year:

It’s all really simple. If voters rejected an annual income tax increase of $536.1 million by a substantial 2-1 margin only two years ago, who in their right mind expects voters to pass double that amount?