Don’t be led astray by the loaded language in the meaningless advisory vote that will be on the Nov. 7 ballot..."Should the state of Idaho keep the property tax relief adopted in August 2006, reducing property taxes by approximately $260 million and protecting funding for public schools by keeping the sales tax at 6 percent?"...Vote no and send a message to lawmakers that decisions about the way we tax Idahoans and fund education should be made with care, and during the regular session....'No' Vote Will Send Message to Capitol, Editoria, Idaho Statesman, 10/25/2006
Initiatives like this are problematic. The voter initiative in California is one paradigm of what can go wrong: many are simply overturned by the courts, judicial action far less likely to happen if a legislature were to pass the same bill. The advisory vote in Idaho is another, far worse, version of this. A kind of official opinion poll, it permits a legislator to completely sever himself or herself from responsible action. Like the plebiscites so popular under Mussolini, it gives the appearance of popular approval without the bother of legislative debate and compromise. It isn't all bad of course. At least the sample isn't 47 clusters from the Upper West Side of Manhattan; it does represent the voters who show up at the polls. But republican government is about elected officials operating responsibly according to their judgment and experience, not as sock puppets to fulfill the whims of daily opinion or the dictates of a tyrant.
Luther
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