If you didn’t have the time to do all of the research before the election next Tuesday November 5, you may find yourself standing in the voting booth with no clue of exactly what the proposed amendments are to the Texas state constitution. So as a service to those of you in that particular predicament, I am providing this list of all of the propositions on the ballot along with how I’m voting. Naturally, my votes and my comments provided here are completely my own.
Proposition #1 – “The constitutional amendment permitting a person to hold more than one office as a municipal judge at the same time.”
My vote: No
Proposition #2 – “The constitutional amendment providing for the issuance of additional general obligation bonds by the Texas Water Development Board in an amount not to exceed $200 million to provide financial assistance for the development of certain projects in economically distressed areas.”
My vote: No
Proposition #3 – “The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to provide for a temporary exemption from ad valorem taxation of a portion of the appraised value of certain property damaged by a disaster.”
My vote: No
Proposition #4 – “The constitutional amendment prohibiting the imposition of an individual income tax, including a tax on an individual’s share of partnership and unincorporated association income.”
My vote: Yes
Proposition #5 – “The constitutional amendment dedicating the revenue received from the existing state sales and use taxes that are imposed on sporting goods to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the Texas Historical Commission to protect Texas’ natural areas, water quality, and history by acquiring, managing, and improving state and local parks and historic sites while not increasing the rate of the state sales and use taxes.”
My vote:
Proposition #6 – “The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to increase by $3 billion the maximum bond amount authorized for the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.”
My vote: No
Proposition #7 – “The constitutional amendment allowing increased distributions to the available school fund.”
My vote: No
Proposition #8 – “The constitutional amendment providing for the creation of the flood infrastructure fund to assist in the financing of drainage, flood mitigation, and flood control projects.”
My vote: No
Proposition #9 – “The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to exempt from ad valorem taxation precious metal held in a precious metal depository located in this state.”
My vote: No
Proposition #10 – “The constitutional amendment to allow the transfer of a law enforcement animal to a qualified caretaker in certain circumstances.”
My vote: No
My comments:
Prop 1 – This would set a dangerous precedent for even higher single-office, elected positions. Municipalities presently are allowed to appoint other municipal judges.
Prop 2 – Any time I see support for an amendment saying something like, “All citizens deserve clean water …”, guarantees that I will vote against it. Creating even more state bureaucracy to oversee this doesn’t make sense.
Prop 3 – Oversight sounds way too complicated to me. Is this really that big of a deal?
Prop 4 – Have you ever heard the phrase, “Texas is the place to live because they don’t have a state income tax.”? Don’t mess with that, we already have ridiculously high sales and property taxes. Giving politicians even more funds is suicide.
Prop 5 – In general it sounds like a good idea, but it would force those earmarked tax revenues to be spent on only those items. Flexibility isn’t a bad thing. There may be a time in the future when state coffers aren’t so full.
Prop 6 – Don’t like the thought of even more bond revenues being potentially mis-managed which has been a criticism of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT).
Prop 7 – The bloated bureaucracy of public education is out of control already. We spend more on public education than most countries!! No more revenue growth for public education. Enough is already there. Vote for responsible people to fix that mess and get rid of individuals that exploit it.
Prop 8 – The rainy day fund shouldn’t be used for ongoing flood control activities (isn’t a one-time event). Plus floods have traditionally been a bastion of Federal and City funding. Don’t fix what isn’t broke.
Prop 9 – See Prop 3 above. Plus, the property tax system is already a mess and being worked on. Creating exemptions to it before it is fixed doesn’t make sense.
Prop 10 – Seems like an issue that should be handled at the county level instead. Here’s a quote from the League of Women Voters. “It is unfortunate that such a common sense action would require a constitutional amendment.”