Yet another example of lobbyists and legislators restricting the rights of citizens

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Founding Fathers of Arizona were progressive populists. They included in the Arizona Constitution three progressive era rights of citizens: initiative, referendum, and recall. These rights were to protect the citizens against the abuses by state legislators controled by powerful lobbyist interests.

There are a number of bills in the legislature this session which seek to restrict and limit these rights of citizens in favor of legislators controled by powerful lobbyist interests. In this, our Centennial year as a state, our Tea-Publican legislature rejects and seeks to reverse Arizona's progressive populist heritage.

One such bill is a legislative proposed referendum to severely limit the ability of Arizona citizens to enact new revenue sources for such things as education and health care that our ideological Tea-Publican legislature routinely underfunds in their desire to shred the "socialist" safety net of the "entitlement society."

Arizonans have routinely approved new taxes and spending for education and health care by citizen initiatives every time such initiatives have appeared on the ballot. It is how the citizens of Arizona correct the ideological extremism of our Tea-Publican legislature.

So now our Tea-Publican legislature wants to impose a two-thirds super-majority requirement on citizen initiatives which seek to enact new revenue sources for such things as education and health care. Because a simple majority vote, the foundation of our democratic Republic, apparently no longer is good enough when it comes to taxes.

"The first principle of republicanism is that the lex majoris partis is the fundamental law of every society of individuals of equal rights; to consider the will of the society enounced by the majority of a single vote as sacred as if unanimous is the first of all lessons in importance, yet the last which is thoroughly learnt. This law once disregarded, no other remains but that of force, which ends necessarily in military despotism." –Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1817.

Rep. David Stevens, R-Sierra Vista, is sponsoring legislation that would require any sort of tax hike to receive the approval of two-thirds of voters in order to be enacted. Referendum would raise the bar on raising taxes – Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required):

He says the change proposed by HCR2043 is necessary to keep a small minority of voters influenced by special interest groups from rubber-stamping a tax hike on everyone.

Really? What Rep. Stevens actually proposes is a minority veto power, a "tyranny of the minority."

Our Tea-Publican legislators have pledged their fealty to their lord and master, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity, the Club for Growth, and dozens of similar anti-tax organizations. These billionaire funded organizations would exercise a minority veto power over the will of the majority of Arizona voters by spending just enough money to convince one voter more than one third of the voters to reject what almost two-thirds of voters favor. As Jefferson said, this is undemocratic and anti-republican, it is despotism.

Ken Strobeck, executive director of the League of Arizona Cities and Towns, pointed out that local governments rarely take tax initiatives to the ballot. When they do, it’s usually for specific purposes.

Proposition 400 in Maricopa County is an example of the sorts of initiatives that would be blocked, he said. In 2004, voters were asked to approve an extension of a half-cent sales tax to fund transportation projects in the region. It was approved by 57 percent of voters.

“Putting a two-thirds threshold on that would pretty much guarantee nothing would ever pass,” Strobeck said.

Craig Sullivan, executive director of the County Supervisors Association of Arizona said counties are required by state law to provide certain functions of government, like providing resources for the courts and criminal justice system.

But at the same time, the counties’ primary source of revenue, property taxes, are capped, as are sales taxes.

“We’re really in a revenue box,” Sullivan said.

So when a county needs money in order to meet some of those state-mandated functions, they have a couple tools at their disposal, including ballot referrals for jail districts and road districts.

But when they do take those measures to the ballot, it’s sometimes a tough sell.

In short, school district, city, county and state governments would never be able to raise revenues to provide essential government services because anti-tax zealots exercising a minority veto power, a "tyranny of the minority," would be able to defeat any measure.

Some of the recent citizens initiatives would have been similarly defeated. The 2006 80 cent-per-pack cigarette tax to fund First Things First only passed by 53 percent, and the Prop 100 temporary sales tax referendum for education only won 61 percent of voter approval in 2010.

Since the voters of this state were foolish enough to fall for the right-wing Prop. 108 in 1992, requiring a two-thirds super-majority vote for any tax increase or the elimination or reduction of any tax exemption or credit, the Arizona legislature has not approved a single tax increase, unable to overcome the minority veto power of the "tyranny of the minority." Every tax increase which has occurred since 1992 has been by way of voter approval at the ballot.

Now the anti-tax lobbyists and Tea-Publican legislators want to take that right away from you.

As long as Prop. 108 remains law, true tax reform in Arizona can never occur. Do not limit your right to citizen initiatives.