The
Trust Deficit
Some
of Virginia's elected officials didn't get the
message in November: Voters don't trust tax-
and-borrow schemes hatched behind the scenes.
To
the astonishment of many who watch Virginia
politics, some of the proponents of last year’s
unsuccessful effort to obtain referendum approval
for a higher sales tax are now insisting the voters
weren’t really opposed to raising taxes.
According to these tax proponents, the voters
rejected the ballot measure because they didn’t
trust their elected representatives to use the money
as specified in the measure.
The irony that any
elected official would underscore the voters’ lack
of trust in him or her is apparently lost on these
folks. What’s worse is that little or
nothing is being done to restore voter confidence in
their elected representatives.
During the weeks
leading up to the 2002 referendum, opponents
reminded voters that many of the proponents of the
road tax increase were the same people who
unsuccessfully pushed constitutional amendments in
1990 to remove the referendum requirement before
bonds pledging future transportation taxes can be
issued and other constitutional amendments in 1998
authorizing regional project financings and revenue
sharing without prior voter approval. All of
these proposed constitutional changes were rejected
overwhelmingly by the voters.
Even though the
rejection of the proposed 1990 pledge bond
amendments was by a margin of four to one, the
proponents pressed forward anyway and achieved much
of what they wanted by another means. In 1991,
the governor, the attorney general, several local
governing bodies, the Virginia Chamber of Commerce
and other business elites prevailed on the Virginia
Supreme Court to sanction what the voters rejected,
as three dissenting justices pointedly put it.
The 1991 case, Dykes
v. Northern Virginia Transportation District
Commission, involved the constitutionality of
debt financing of the Fairfax County Parkway which
relied solely on payments by Fairfax County to
retire the debt. The dissenting opinion found
“the scheme employed by the County to be a
shocking, patent attempt to circumvent and nullify
the requirement for voter approval” contained in
the Constitution.
The same scheme
employed by Fairfax County in the Dykes case
has since been used by the General Assembly to
finance such projects as Route 58 across southern
Virginia. Hundreds of millions of dollars in
tax-supported debt has been issued during the last
decade without voter approval.
When voters see
that their elected officials and those business
elites who favor increased taxation, borrowing and
spending treat their opposition with contempt, they
have good reason to be distrustful. Once
again, these proponents of more government are
undeterred by an emphatic statement made by the
voters. They continue to look for ways to
accomplish what they couldn’t persuade the voters
to approve last November.
Could it be that a
major prompting for this year’s push to amend the
Constitution to allow Virginia governors to serve
consecutive terms is a desire to push through in the
future the type of tax increase that failed in 2002?
Beneath the lofty statements about the need for
long-term planning and greater gubernatorial
accountability is the cynical desire for a governor
with greater political clout to implement the
elitist agenda.
The conduct of the
people’s business goes on as before — largely
beyond the eyes of the voters. An example is
the current scheme to renovate buildings at the seat
of government in Richmond without voter approval or
the need to comply with the Virginia Public
Procurement Act.
Too much goes on
behind the scenes in Richmond. There is too
little trust in the voters and taxpayers. Is
there any wonder they continue to distrust their
elected officials?
--
January 27, 2003
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