Be wary of out-of-state players in spending-lid ballot question

[NOTE: We are not alone here in Montana. Howard Rich and his cronies are trying to inflict their ideology in Nebraska, Oregon, Maine, and other states as well as in Montana.]

October 1, 2006, Omaha World-Herald

By Harold W. Andersen: WORLD-HERALD CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Anybody out there ever vote for Howard Rich?

I thought so. Yet if he is successful in his efforts, this very wealthy, ultra-conservative New Yorker could go down in Nebraska political history among the figures who have wielded the most influence in terms of the variety and quality of services provided by state and local governments and the way those services are paid for.

Rich and his associates, including an anti-tax group active in the North Platte area for several years, are promoting a constitutional amendment which, if approved by Nebraska voters Nov. 7, would impose a constitutional straitjacket upon the Legislature and all those entities that depend upon the Legislature for funds.

Rich and his associates provided the funds - $860,000 as of July 11, with another contributions report due Oct. 7 - that paid hired-gun petition circulators to put on the ballot a proposed SOS ("Stop Over Spending") constitutional amendment, Initiative 423.

The amendment would limit annual increases in legislative appropriations to the annual increases - if any - in the federal Consumer Price Index and the state's population.

The services which Nebraska's state and local governments should provide, the level and quality of those services, the tax system which supports those services -- all are legitimate issues for close, continuing scrutiny. They should be at the top of the agenda when the 2007 Legislature convenes in January. But the Legislature should retain the flexibility to address these issues carefully.

It will be argued, of course, that all that Rich and Nebraskans who support him are doing is giving Nebraskans a chance to vote on the spending issue. But it's a chance to vote on the issue only within the limits of the straitjacket approach favored by Rich and others who think like him.

The rich Howard Rich approach is a total perversion of the "right to petition" language in the Nebraska Constitution.

The constitution says the first legislative power reserved to the people is the initiative. That means the people of Nebraska, not someone living in some other state who has access to enough money to, in effect, buy Nebraskans' right to petition.

Howard Rich's efforts to leave his imprint on the Nebraska Constitution is only part of the Howard Rich story. His agenda becomes all the more alarming the more one learns about the efforts of Rich and his associates across the nation to promote their ultra-conservative philosophy in at least 10 states this year alone.

In five of the states, efforts financed by Rich and his associates through a front named Americans for Limited Government have been kept off the ballot by a variety of court rulings -- for example, the finding of massive fraud by signature gatherers in Montana and the illegal use of out-of-state petition circulators in Oklahoma.

Nebraska is one of the three states (Oregon and Maine are the others) in which Rich and some local supporters have succeeded in buying their way onto the November ballot through use of paid petition circulators.

I'm not suggesting how Howard Rich would describe his objectives. But anyone joining the anti-tax, limited-government movement risks finding himself in the company of extremists like Grover Norquist, affiliated with Americans for Limited Government, who once described his goal this way: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

Since the main thrust of today's column is concern about an issue of fundamental importance to state and local governments and to citizens who have a stake in those governments, let me close with some questions for you:

Do you favor a freeze or possibly a reduction in Medicaid appropriations for health care? In spending for building and maintaining streets and highways? In spending for educating children? In money spent supervising the care of children in the state's foster care system?

What about a freeze or reduction in spending meant to ensure that sex offenders are incarcerated and treated until it is safe to release them and properly supervise those who are released? Or in money for the University of Nebraska and the three state colleges, forcing further cutbacks in faculty and program offerings while increasing the tuition burden on students and their families?

I hope those few specific examples have helped make my point: The question of proper funding of governmental services and how to pay for those services is considerably more complex than is suggested by mindless generalizations like "Everybody knows taxes are too high" or "Why don't they reduce taxes by reducing government spending?"