Article about the TEL Amendment

Give Blackwell the business
How to defeat a dangerous amendment
By Michael Douglas, Beacon Journal associate editor

Ohioans must defeat the proposal engineered by Ken Blackwell, a constitutional amendment designed to limit severely state taxation and spending, set for the ballot in November.

How?
A band of opponents has challenged the validity of petitions collected to place the proposal on the ballot. They have filed protests in Cuyahoga, Franklin, Lorain and 12 other counties. Bill Faith, the executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, jabbed sharply: ``The petitions are just like the amendment itself, sloppy and poorly done.'' He added the obvious: ``A constitutional amendment of this importance and complexity needs to be approached with a lot more care.''

I used this space last week to describe some of the myriad ambiguities, perversities and invitations to lawsuits that reside in the proposal. Worth emphasis is the supremacy clause providing that ``in any case of conflict between any provision of this section and any other provision contained in this constitution, the provisions of this section shall control.'' What a collision that sets in motion. You may think all gas tax revenue should be plowed into roads. The amendment suggests otherwise. Similar mischief lurks for the workers' compensation system.

Not to mention the colossal headache for local governments, a Republican candidate for governor now promoting a scheme that amounts to dictating from the top, the tossing aside of home rule for chartered cities.

Wish the petition protesters well. Their success will save the state much money, fury and ruin.

Jim Petro has another idea for stopping the amendment. The attorney general and Republican rival of Blackwell in the governor's race has his own proposal to limit state taxation and spending. He wants to cap state tax revenue at 5.5 percent of the state's total personal income. Blackwell and friends argue the Petro alternative lacks bite. They are right, the plan following the path of many other states with such limitations aimed at preventing truly out-of-control spending.

Petro hasn't yet pulled the trigger. He sees his proposal as a last resort, a way to give voters a choice on Election Day, a way to escape the wreckage promised by the Blackwell squeeze. That stance helps Petro in his primary run. He can talk tough about spending. The tactic mirrors the thinking of many Republicans who contend that it will take an amendment to defeat an amendment, voters getting a chance to express their disdain without causing too much harm.

Sound excessively calculating? Another simpler course exists: Defeat the miserable thing, straight up. Pull out all the stops. Build a broad coalition. Raise big-time money. Mobilize thinking in Ohio with a fitting sense of urgency.

Oklahoma faces a similar test in November, a ballot initiative labeled ``A Taxpayer Bill of Rights.'' Opponents recently filed petition protests. Striking was the presence of business leaders at the front of the line challenging the validity of the petitions. The chief executive officer of Spirit Bank told the Tulsa World that the taxation and spending limitation would stop and even reverse economic development. He described the measure as a fraud.

These weren't executives with flawed DNA, a liberal gene surprisingly at work. They represent the foundation of communities. They understand, as one put it, that the initiative ``sounds enticing at first glance'' but then comes the wicked punch: ``It cements a state in second-class status.''

In Oklahoma, they tell the story of Colorado. The tale bears repeating again and again. A taxation and spending limitation sent the state spiraling downward by all manner of measures, support for higher education, highway maintenance, health care. Amid the deepening damage, a broad consensus formed, including the Republican father of the initiative, Bill Owens, the Colorado governor. Democrats and Republicans, suburban communities and larger cities, business leaders (the Denver Chamber of Commerce!) and assorted interest groups all called for relief. In November, Colorado voters suspended the limitation for five years.

Already, the Coalition for Ohio's Future (www.ohiosfuture.org) has more than 140 organizations on board to defeat the Blackwell amendment. They understand the proposal is worse than the Colorado version with its sloppiness, supremacy clause and hammer blow to local governments. Unfortunately, the coalition is mostly a gathering of labor groups, local officials, ministers and good-government types. When will practical-minded business leaders from both political parties join the fight, aware of the high stakes?

The past few months, it has been hard to make the circuit of a cocktail party without someone recommending The Earth is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century, the very full and passionate call of Thomas Friedman for all of us to get smart, honing our skills in the light of the increasingly stiff global competition. In almost every instance, the voice from behind the martini urges: We gotta do something.

Here is our chance. Take heart in the recent Forecast 2006 poll by Opinion Consultants and Marketing Works. Of the Ohioans surveyed, 48 percent favored a constitutional amendment to limit state and local spending, and 28 percent registered opposition. The results signal the difficult job ahead in defeating the proposal, and thus, the little time to lose. They also suggest the measure is beatable.

Republicans may balk at an effort certain to rankle Ken Blackwell if he is the party's nominee for governor. Then again, it isn't about him, is it?