TABOR, '65%' Measures Trounced in Tuesday Elections

It was a clean sweep for NEA, its state affiliates, and their many coalition allies in four states where on Nov. 7 voters decisively defeated budget-crippling ballot initiatives that would have devastated public schools and a host of social and other public services, including health care, transportation, fire and police protection and more.

So-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, measures sought to amend state constitutions in Oregon, Nebraska, and Maine that would have tied revenue and spending to a formula based on population growth and the consumer price index.

Colorado was the only state where voters were asked to consider a '65%' constitutional amendment that would have required every local school district in the state to devote 65% of their total budgets to specified "classroom instruction" costs.

Unofficial election returns showed:

• Maine voters defeated TABOR by 55% to 45%.
• Nebraska voters defeated TABOR by 71% to 29%.
• Oregon voters defeated TABOR by 71% to 29%.
• Colorado voters defeated the 65% scheme, known as Amendment 39, by 62% to 38%.

TABOR proponents began working in 2005 to get TABOR on the ballot or approved by state legislatures in more than 25 states. All of the legislative efforts failed at the hands of state lawmakers. On the ballot front, petitions were circulated in eight states.

TABOR opponents, including NEA and its respective state affiliates, successfully challenged the petitions and had the proposals removed from the ballots in Oklahoma, Missouri, Nevada, and Montana.

One of the key issues, if not the key issue, in all of these cases was massive signature fraud resulting from the TABOR backers' habit of hiring out-of-state professional "signature harvesters."

In a ruling that is representative of related court decisions in the other states, the Montana Supreme Court stated in a late October decision:

"The District Court ultimately concluded" - and the Supreme Court affirmed - "that these three unlawful practices -- certification of signatures that were not signed in the presence of the affiant, false addresses, and bait and switch tactics -- resulted in legally defective certification affidavits and constituted a 'pervasive and general pattern and practice of fraud and conscious circumvention of procedural safeguards,' in violation of state laws relating to qualification of an initiative on the ballot."

You can read the entire Montana Supreme Court decision here (PDF, 118KB, 38 pages).

Like TABOR, the 65% Deception was a formidable challenge in 2005 and 2006 as it worked its way into consideration in one variation or another in by legislatures in more than a dozen states. It was rejected by all of them except in Georgia, which remains the only state in the country where the 65% requirement for local school district budgets has been enacted into law.

Its supporters, led by eccentric Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, then turned all their efforts to qualifying their proposal for statewide ballots in 10 or more states. They managed to succeed in just one - Colorado, where voters gave it a good drubbing.

Kay Coles, manager of an NEA project that addresses various school funding issues, said, "Amendment 39 had everything to do with politics, and nothing to do with improving education. We think Colorado voters have sent the rest of the country, and especially any elected leaders who support some version of the 65% Deception, a clear message that this is a misguided ploy that is unworthy of any further consideration."

Resources

Economist Explains How TABOR Shrinks State Economy

The Sierra Institute of Applied Economics CEO, Dr. Richard Sims, recently completed papers explaining how TABOR shrinks state economies, causing significant job losses as well as reductions in individual personal income.

In Montana, Dr. Sims found that the major impacts on Montanans' economy and quality of life can be stated as follows:

• Tax and spending limitations during the 15-year window from 1990 to 2005 under TABOR would have yielded a net loss of 6,000 jobs in Montana, and a net reduction of Montanans' total personal income by $149 million.
• In 2005 alone, after 15 years under TABOR, Montana's public services  would experience a 27.7% cut, a reduction of $379 million from state funding for Montana's essential obligations and institutions, including first responders, law enforcement, fire prevention and protection, public health and public schools.
• During the 15-year TABOR window reductions in spending would have caused job losses in the private as well as public sectors, cut household earnings, and reduced demand for consumer goods and business services -- all yielding a net loss to the Montana economy.

Read the entire report by downloading "What If TABOR Had Been Enacted in Montana 15 Years Ago?"  ( PDF, 128 KB, 6 pages)

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is a widely respected Washington, D.C. policy organization "working at the federal and state levels on fiscal policy and public programs that affect low- and moderate-income families and individuals."

The Center studies the impact of proposed policies and programs on "the health of the economy and on the soundness of federal and state budgets." Among its wide-ranging collection of research reports, CBPP has a set of studies of TABOR and TABOR-type proposals and their potential impacts on state budgets and services in Michigan, Nevada, Montana, Kansas, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. It has a number of reports with analyses of Colorado's experience with its TABOR.

Other recommended CBPP resources include:

• The Flawed "Population Plus Inflation" Formula; Why TABOR's Growth Formula Doesn't Work
• A "Super" Bad Idea: Requiring a Two-thirds Legislative Supermajority to Raise Taxes Protects Special Interest Tax Breaks and Gives Budget Veto Power to a Small Minority of Legislators  

TABOR Tops List of 'Gimmicks that Don't Work'

The Real Education Solutions Web site offers a sampling of "Solutions that Work"  and "Gimmicks that Don't Work," which is topped by TABOR. The Web site explains why "TABOR's simplistic plan to 'starve government' also threatens to starve our schools of the precious financial resources they need to educate our children."

The Web site offers a good sampling of news stories and research from a variety of sources.

Colorado Think Tank Offers Detailed Look at Nation's First TABOR

The Bell Policy Center is an independent think tank that is, according to its Web site, " committed to making Colorado a state of opportunity for all. The non-profit center seeks "to reinvigorate the debate on issues affecting the well-being of Coloradans and to promote policies that open gateways to opportunity."

Its Web site includes a comprehensive section on TABOR  that provides "Resources," "Publications" "Events," and "Education Tools" related to Colorado's TABOR, which is the first and only TABOR to be enacted in any state. According the Bell Policy Center, "Over the years, structural flaws in TABOR have seriously impaired the state's ability to set budgetary and programmatic priorities and respond to crises, such as the recent economic downturn. TABOR has played a major role in Colorado's current fiscal 'train wreck.'"

Progressive States Network

The Progressive States Network offers useful background and analyses of TABOR, including information about the "Backers of TABOR" that reveals that "virtually all of the funding is coming from the same handful of organizations."

Among the site's resources is The Taxpayers' Bill of Goods, which includes:

• TABOR in Your State 
• A TABOR Primer: Why the Policy is So Destructive 
• TABOR's Disastrous Record in Colorado 
• Why TABOR Hurts the Economy 

TABOR is just one of the issues that Progressive States Network studies and monitors. The Network was founded "to pass progressive legislation in all fifty states by providing coordinated research and strategic advocacy tools to forward-thinking state legislators."

Bloggers Are Making the Connections

TABOR and similar issues have been getting attention in the blogosphere lately. A number of bloggers have been "following the money" and making the connections that show the same small group of wealthy libertarians is supporting TABOR and other issues in the various states where they have surfaced. Among these bloggers are:

Daily Kos: http://www.dailykos.com/user/sandlapper

Left in the West: http://leftinthewest.com/index.php/2006/07/26/howard-richs-alg-claims-credit-for-montana-initiatives/

Preemptive Karma: http://www.preemptivekarma.com/archives/2006/07/the_problem_wit_1.html

Boregasm: http://www.hartwilliams.com/blog/2006/07/unlimited-terms-of-endearment-part-i.html

Blogs reflect the personal opinions of their authors and assertions and statements made by them may or may not be substantiated. In listing these resources, the NEA in no way is vouching for their accuracy or credibility.

Influential Nebraskan Takes on TABOR, Howard Rich

Harold W. Andersen, former publisher of the Omaha World-Herald and now a widely influential columnist/commentator in Nebraska, is taking on his state's version of TABOR and its out-of-state backers led by New York real estate mogul Howie Rich.

Writing in the Oct. 1, 2006 issue of the World-Herald (free registration is required, but worth the effort), Anderson observes that the constitutional amendment, called Stop OverSpending or SOS, promoted by Rich and his cronies "would impose a constitutional straitjacket upon the Legislature and all those entities that depend upon the Legislature for funds."

Andersen notes that while Rich is all but unknown in Nebraska, "this very wealthy, ultra-conservative New Yorker could go down in Nebraska political history among the figures who have wielded the most influence in terms of the variety and quality of services provided by state and local governments and the way those services are paid for."

Andersen goes on to warn, "Howard Rich's efforts to leave his imprint on the Nebraska Constitution is only part of the Howard Rich story. His agenda becomes all the more alarming the more one learns about the efforts of Rich and his associates across the nation to promote their ultra-conservative philosophy in at least 10 states this year alone.

"In five of the states, efforts financed by Rich and his associates through a front named Americans for Limited Government have been kept off the ballot by a variety of court rulings - for example, the finding of massive fraud by signature gatherers in Montana and the illegal use of out-of-state petition circulators in Oklahoma.

"Nebraska is one of the three states (Oregon and Maine are the others) in which Rich and some local supporters have succeeded in buying their way onto the November ballot through use of paid petition circulators."

Andersen's complete column is recommended reading. For more on Rich, read this revealing feature in the Washington Post (free registration is required here, too, but it's also worth the effort) and "The Money Trail: Who's Behind All This?" elsewhere on our Web site.