California dreaming
Governing examples from the West Coast shouldn’t influence Texas lawmakers.
“Texas is being California-ized and you may not even be noticing it!”
Gov. Greg Abbott issued that dire warning about left coast influence insidiously invading our state shortly before he took office. So it’s especially noteworthy that his current special session of the Legislature has produced a couple of bills that seem like they’re straight out of a playbook showing how California degenerated into an ungovernable mess.
State lawmakers are pushing legislation requiring that two routine functions of local government — raising taxes and annexing territory — go on the ballot for voter approval. The idea of citizens voting on workaday government matters has a certain populist appeal. But just as California’s referendum system has rendered it dysfunctional, forcing issues like these on the ballot is a bad idea for Texas.
One of these proposals, Senate Bill 6, would require a public vote before Texas’ largest cities could annex new territory. The other, Senate Bill 1, would require local governments to hold a referendum if their property tax revenues surpass certain thresholds, sort of like speed limits on tax collections. Big cities like Houston would have to go to voters if their tax revenues rose more than 4 percent; smaller governments that collect less than $20 million would have to hold a referendum if their revenues rose more than 8 percent.
Once again, these bills are examples of how state elected officials who call themselves conservative are usurping the authority of local governments. But beyond that hypocrisy, this idea of forcing local governments to put more and more issues on the ballot is poor public policy.
There’s a reason our forefathers bequeathed us a tradition of representative government. We citizens generally don’t have the time or the inclination to research every contract and every issue that appears on a city council agenda. We elect mayors, city councils, county judges and commissioners to develop expertise on those matters and judge them on our behalf. Holding referendums on routine government functions puts voters in the position of giving simple, yes or no, answers to sometimes complicated public policy questions. And yes, that includes issues involving tax revenues and expanding city limits.
Don’t think for a minute that referendum results are always an accurate reflection of public opinion. They’re generally low turnout elections, so their outcomes are more likely to be a measure of which side has the more energized base of voters. It’s a safe bet that tax issues and municipal annexations are more likely to agitate opponents than attract supporters. So forcing those matters onto the ballot represents yet another way state elected officials are trying to gum up the works of local government.
Californians have learned the hard way that throwing too many things on the ballot is a lousy idea, an exercise in extreme democracy that’s created chaos. In a way, our Founding Fathers debated the merits and disadvantages of this issue two centuries ago. Shortly after the Constitutional Convention adjourned in Philadelphia, legend has it someone asked Benjamin Franklin what sort of government would rule the new nation.
“A republic, madam, if you can keep it,” Franklin responded.
Our representative governments are republics, not direct democracies. Our supposedly conservative state elected leaders shouldn’t force local governments to hold referendums on routine municipal issues. We don’t need Californiastyle government in Texas.