It's Easy Enough to Raise Taxes

It's Easy Enough to Raise Taxes

Let’s play Jeopardy. The answer is, “Because we can recall legislators.” Now, you have to supply the question. In this case, the correct question would be, “Legislators get elected with a simple majority of votes. So why can't school levies pass that way?” It was the question that opened the article in this and every other paper I read Tuesday regarding the Washington House of Representatives vote to amend the Washington constitution and lower the threshold for public school levies.
Currently, school levies require a 60% supermajority for passage. The Washington House would like to lower that to 50% plus one vote. And the question is, why aren’t school levies treated like other issues that require only a simple majority for passage? There’s actually a very good answer and it was not the one given by the reporter who wrote the story. While the hurdle may have been set high during the Great Depression to protect farmers, it is not a vestige of that era anymore than Social Security is.
Once it’s done, we cannot undo a school levy. Once passed, a levy sticks to us like a tar baby. On those rare occasions when a school levy fails on the first try, the school board will take another crack at us as soon as it is convenient. I’ve never yet seen opponents of a school levy given an opportunity to overturn it after the levy has passed. And levies can be taxation without representation. By the time the levy expires, it’s likely that a good many of the citizens who voted for it will have died or moved away, leaving the tax burden to people just coming of voting age or newly arrived who never had an opportunity to vote for or against. A supermajority makes it more likely that a majority of those who voted in favor are still around to pay the bills.
We should never imagine that democracy is about majorities getting whatever it wants. There must be checks upon what the majority may foist upon the minority. Just as in the television show “Survivor,” I’d like to see Ted Kennedy voted off the continent. But even if I could persuade every other American to join me, we would not have the legal authority to enforce it. There must always be limits to the power a majority can exert. Read the Bill of Rights. It’s all about limiting the power of the majority.
And it’s not as though school districts are suffering. Even with the 60% requirement, Washington school districts get what they want on the first try 86% of the time. And, when bonds fail, school boards put the issue before the voters again and again until it does pass. This does impose additional costs. But, they could save money by holding school levy elections on the same day as general elections More on that later.
Often, forcing school districts to face the voters more than once is a good thing. Here in Pullman our school board had gotten very complacent about what they asked of the voters. Pullman voters passed levies like automatons. Then one day, the school board asked for a new elementary school to replace an apparently sound preexisting school. Supposedly, the playground at the old school was too small.
The voters had the good sense to reject this nonsense and the school board had to re-draft their request. Ultimately, a much better argument was presented to the voters, and the bond passed. Today the kids attend a shiny new school.
As it is, school boards already manipulate results by fiddling with the dates of levy elections. Have you ever noticed that they are always held on really weird dates? Have you ever voted in a school levy on the first Tuesday in November? Probably not. We have one here coming up in February. And I’ll be voting for it. But the selection of the date offends my principles. By holding school levy elections out of season, turnout is kept down and those who do vote are those most likely to vote “yes.” A school levy that can’t win 60%, even with the school board manipulating the playing field probably needs to be written better or explained better. Washingtonians appreciate education sufficiently to supply 60% majorities to well crafted, genuinely needed levies.