Ballot Math / Statewide / Prop 141

Ballot measure: Statewide, constitutional amendment

Proposition 141: Ban mileage taxes, in the constitution

Officially: Proposition 141, SCR 1004 (2025). "Prohibits taxes or fees based on vehicle miles traveled and laws monitoring or limiting vehicle miles traveled without consent." A yes needs a simple majority, but because it amends the constitution, a future legislature cannot undo it by statute.

In one sentence: this bans a tax that does not exist, permanently, before anyone has proposed it.

What it does

Prop 141 adds a section to Article IX of the Arizona Constitution barring state and local governments from imposing any tax or fee based on vehicle miles traveled (a "VMT tax"), and from enacting any law or rule that monitors or limits vehicle miles traveled without the person's voluntary consent. Two exceptions: interstate commercial vehicle fuel tax and registration agreements, and government-owned vehicles.

The context: no Arizona government imposes a mileage tax today, and none has formally proposed one. Some states are studying mileage taxes as a replacement for gas taxes, because electric vehicles pay no gas tax and fuel efficiency keeps eroding the revenue that pays for roads. Arizona's gas tax is 18 cents per gallon. This measure is preemptive: if passed, Arizona would be the first state with a constitutional mileage tax ban, and adopting a VMT tax later would require another constitutional amendment approved by voters.

A YES vote

Writes the ban into the constitution. No state or local mileage tax, and no government monitoring of your mileage without your consent, unless voters amend the constitution again.

A NO vote

Leaves the law as it is today, which is also no mileage tax. The Legislature would remain free to create one someday by ordinary statute, and voters would judge it then.

The math, if a mileage tax ever existed

About $520 a year at 2 cents a mile, for a 26,000-mile driver.

That is the comparison that makes this concrete. A high-mileage commuter driving 26,000 miles a year currently pays roughly $155 a year in Arizona gas tax (18 cents a gallon at about 30 mpg). At a hypothetical 2 cents per mile, the same driver pays about $520. Mileage taxes fall hardest on rural residents and long commuters, who drive the most and have the fewest alternatives; gas taxes fall hardest on drivers of older, less efficient vehicles. Neither tax exists in the other's place today: this measure decides which future is constitutionally off the table.

The strongest case for YES

  • Kill it before it starts. Mileage taxes are actively studied in other states as the gas tax replacement. A constitutional ban settles the question instead of fighting it later against a funded bureaucracy.
  • Privacy. A per-mile tax needs per-mile measurement. The measure also bans monitoring or limiting mileage without consent, not just taxing it.
  • It hits the wrong people. Per-mile charges punish rural Arizonans and long-distance commuters, the drivers with no transit option.

The strongest case for NO

  • There is nothing to ban yet. No Arizona mileage tax exists or is proposed. This amends the constitution against a hypothetical.
  • The road funding problem is real. As vehicles use less gas, the gas tax buys fewer roads every year. Voters may want a future legislature to have every tool available, judged on an actual proposal with an actual rate.
  • Constitutional lock-in cuts both ways. The same permanence that blocks a bad tax also blocks a well-designed one, and undoing it requires another statewide vote.

The fine print

  • A yes vote changes nothing about what you pay today. Your gas tax, registration fees, and vehicle license tax are untouched either way.
  • Watch the second clause: the measure bans not only taxing mileage but also laws that monitor or limit mileage without consent. How broadly courts read that language, for example against future emissions or congestion programs, would be decided in litigation.

How to vote without getting your ballot rejected

  • Mail it by Tuesday, October 27, 2026. After that day, do not mail it: use a drop box or a vote center instead.
  • It must be received by 7 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3. Postmarks do not count.
  • Sign and date the affidavit envelope, and write a current phone number on it. If your signature is questioned, the county uses that number to contact you so your vote can still count.
  • Leaving any item blank is allowed. It does not affect the rest of your ballot.

Sources

Ballot Math: analysis only, no endorsements. Read the official ballot language yourself; it is linked above because we want you to check us. Back to Ballot Math home.