Another Educational Tax Proposal – Better Chance Than 2013?

In ChalkBeat, the highly rated online education news source, Erica Meltzer reported on the fast signature collection efforts of the state’s public education establishment for their $1.6 billion tax increase initiative.

The teachers union and its allies turned in 170,000 signatures July 11, following the new rules governing constitutional amendments requiring signatures from voters in each of the 35 state senate districts. They need 98,472 valid signatures. They claim to have collected 65 percent with volunteers. They paid circulators for the remaining 70,000. The initiative will have to get 55 percent support from the voters to pass under the new rules.

With a poorly designed and positioned initiative, a $1 billion tax lost 2-to-1 in 2013, even after an $11 million campaign. Does this effort have a better chance?

My view was yes, but it is still an uphill battle.

Supporters of the measure will be campaigning in a complicated political environment, possibly sharing the ballot with a major tax increase for transportation, as well as a governor’s race and legislative contests that will determine control of the state Senate, where Republicans currently hold a one-seat majority.

Candidates up and down the ballot likely will be asked to take a position on the ballot measure, layering partisan politics over a measure that supporters hope will have broad appeal.

“You start this analysis with the assumption that it’s an uphill battle because we don’t really pass statewide tax increases, while schools pass lots of local taxes and bond measures,” said political consultant and pollster Floyd Ciruli. “The difference is trust. At the statewide level, people don’t trust that the money will go to benefit their local schools.”

Ciruli sees advantages, though, to asking voters in a mid-term election. Turnout will be higher than in an off-year, when older, more conservative voters tend to dominate, and even-year voters are more likely to have Democratic tendencies and be more open to taxes.

The contentious Democratic primary, which focused on education, also “primed” voters to see low funding as a key problem for schools, he said.

“The environment is pro-education,” Ciruli said. That places the tax measure “in the ballpark, but it’s still a challenge to do a statewide tax increase.”

Democratic candidates will have to take a position on a very complex and expensive ballot initiative. Sign up and be accused of tax and spend or don't and anger the union and its friends.