One vote that went largely unremarked upon this past Super-Duper-Tsumani Tuesday was LA’s Measure S. That’s “S” as in scam.

At issue was a 10% telephone tax that LA had been illegally charging its residents. After a court invalidated it, threatening about $250 million in annual revenue, the mayor and other pols put together Measure S and promoted it as a telephone tax cut, from 10% to 9%. In reality, the choices were between zero percent and nine percent.

Police Chief William Bratton did television spots implying that without the “tax cut” the city would descend into anarchy. The measure passed by a 2-1 margin.

The LA Daily News noted:

Measure S, the troubling communications tax on Tuesday’s Los Angeles ballot, passed not because of its merits, but because of the dishonesty behind it. It’s likely many of the people who stamped the “yes” button thought that this was a simple 10percent tax reduction, as the ballot language led the cursory reader to believe.

Maybe it even made them feel good about the city leaders. Or perhaps voters were simply swayed by the mailers featuring Police Chief William Bratton saying Measure S was all about public safety. Unfortunately for the city’s naive voters, neither is true.

They were duped by the city’s elected officials who have so badly managed the city’s money that the prospect of the current phone tax being ruled illegal as it works its way through court prompted them to resort to trickery to find a new source.

In essence, they just voted us a tax increase cannily worded to seem the opposite.

The result might be a reduction in the rate of taxation, but it actually increases what can be taxed to all sorts of services including text messages and Internet access. So users will pay a slightly lower percentage, but on a lot more.

Nor is this money for public safety. The campaign consultants just figured voters would be moved to say “yes” if scared by the thought of criminals running unchecked through Los Angeles.