Representative Sue Peterson (R-13/Sioux Falls) is acting funny. Even though she’s a Republican, she has put forward two bills that would encourage more democratic participation in local government.
Rep. Peterson has proposed Senate Bill 85, which would require school districts to put any opt-out from property tax limits to a public vote. That bill got through the Senate but failed Wednesday in the House on a 29–39 vote, with most of Peterson’s fellow yahoos voting yea and the Democrats and more moderate Republicans voting nay. Peterson’s House prime sponsor Rep. John Hughes (R-13/Sioux Falls) made a motion to reconsider, but if he can’t revive the mandatory opt-out vote, Peterson has also filed Senate Bill 223, which would make it much easier for citizens to refer opt-outs to a vote. SB 223 would double petition time from 20 days to 40 and change the number voters needed to sign an opt-out referral petition from 5% of registered voters in the district to 50 voters, regardless of district size.
Requiring 50 signatures instead of 5% of registered voters wouldn’t make much difference in small districts like Oldham-Ramona-Rutland, where 5% of 1,053 registered voters equals 53 referral petition signatures. There might be some even smaller districts where SB 223 would require a few more signatures to put an opt-out on the ballot than the current 5%.
But in our Class AA districts, which probably all have more than 10,000 voters, SB 223 would make it stunningly easy to refer opt-outs to a public vote. Fewer than half a percent of voters—1 out of 200 people—could put opt-outs to a vote in Spearfish and districts of similar size. Senator Peterson’s Sioux Falls school district, the largest in the state, has about 126,000 registered voters. The 5% threshold requires over 6,000 Sioux Falls voters to sign a referendum petition to delay an opt-out until the public votes. Peterson’s SB 223 would change the threshold to 0.04%.
When Senator Peterson proposed her opt-out referendum changes to the Comprehensive Property Tax Task Force last fall, I noted that she generally votes to make it harder for citizens to put measures on the ballot and that this selective outburst of faith in direct democracy is just part of her drive to help mugwumps wreck public education (see also Peterson’s bills this Session to cancel school opt-opts older than four years and send larger stealth vouchers to more private school families).
But setting Senator Peterson’s anti-public-school motive aside, let’s look at the inconsistency of these policies themselves. SB 85 and SB 223 both propose bypassing representative democracy to resolve one specific policy question, tax levies for public schools, by direct votes of the people. The only other situation I can think of where we would require a public vote, as SB 85 does, on something other than electing representatives to decide policy for us is amending the state constitution. We require direct democracy in that case because amending the state constitution is a big hairy deal. I can agree that raising tax levies above a statutory ceiling is a big deal… but aren’t there bigger, hairier deals which might warrant the same level of public discussion and approval at the polls? If the people should always vote directly on tax levies, shouldn’t they also always vote directly on changes to discipline policies, or cell phone bans, or curriculum? If the public should vote directly on tax levies, shouldn’t the public also vote on the primary recipients of those tax dollars, the teachers they hire to enlighten, ennoble, and protect their students?
SB 223 creates a similar inconsistency in how we deal with public policy. SB 223 singles out property tax opt-outs as an issue that deserves an easier path for referral to a public vote. Nowhere else in our scheme of local and statewide ballot measures do we make set lower standards for certain fields of policy to be resolved by direct democracy. You want to refer your elected officials’ decision to a vote or initiative an ordinance or law of your own? It doesn’t matter what the policy deals with—taxes, zoning, Medicaid, beer—you just go get 5% of the voters to sign your petition, and we vote. We require double that signature count to amend the constitution, but the signature requirement is the same no matter what policy you are trying to write into our founding document—abortion, marijuana, crime victim rights, protections for initiative and referendum. And initiatives and referenda all get the same deadlines, regardless of the policy area they address.
I like direct democracy, but I like it to be consistent. Even if I didn’t know Senator Peterson’s promotion of more public say over school tax levies is just cloak for the dagger she wants to stick into public education, I’d vote against both of her subterfugial bills due to their inconsistency. If one policy matter demands a public vote, so do lots of others. If supporters of one kind of policy referendum deserve more time to circulate petitions, so do all policy petitioners. And if opponents of tax increases can call a vote with just 50 signatures, then proponents of tax increases or other policies deserve the same low threshold to put their priorities to a direct vote of the people.
Related Refer Madness: Rookie Representative Lauren Nelson (R-18/Yankton) wants to force any school capital outlay certificates to a public vote—see her Senate Bill 229. It would also lower the payment threshold for capital installment purchase contracts or lease purchases requiring a public hearing and vote from 1.5% of taxable valuation in the district to $50,000.
Pierre’s too partisan to be labeled proper.