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."