Week 41: The Voters Take the Pen

MaxWho gets to set the tax on your house? Your legislature, your city hall, or you standing in a voting booth with a pen?

BlakeOh, that's a loaded way to start a Saturday.

MaxIt's a loaded ballot, Blake.

BlakeFair, and I'd like to know who wrote the rules before I sign off on anything.

MaxOf course you would. I'm Max, and this is The Common Thread.

BlakeAnd I'm Blake. Max, you've been circling this pattern all week.

MaxHold on. I have. Voters are going around the people they elected and writing tax rules and election rules themselves.

BlakeDirectly. No middleman.

MaxRight. Some of it lands on your property tax bill, some of it on how you prove who you are at the polls.

BlakeWait, so is that democracy doing its job or a vote of no confidence in city hall?

MaxOh, man. You ready for that fight? We'll get there.

BlakeThen start at the beginning. How big is this ballot, really?

MaxOkay, so numbers. Ballotpedia put out a release on September tenth. It says a hundred and sixty-four statewide measures were certified as of September eighth.

BlakeHundred and sixty-four. Across how many states?

MaxForty states.

BlakeHold on. Our own brief says thirty-nine. Somebody's off by one.

MaxSomebody is, and I'd bet it's a tally thing, not a mistake. Our brief is a snapshot. Ballotpedia is counting certifications up to a specific date, and those move as courts and secretaries of state finish their paperwork.

BlakeFine, but I wanna press that. Is a one-state gap a rounding error, or does it tell us the count is soft?

MaxSoft at the edges. Thirty-nine or forty, the point survives. Nearly the whole country is voting on something.

BlakeMm. Okay.

MaxI'd just add that this is why I like saying where a number comes from. A count is only as good as the date and the definition behind it, and Ballotpedia gave us both.

BlakeWhich is the habit I wish more people had. A big round number with no date attached is how you end up repeating something at dinner that nobody can source.

MaxAnd here's the part that fits our angle. Ballotpedia says seven states have voter ID measures.

BlakeSeven on one ballot.

MaxSeven. And nine measures in seven states deal with the initiative and referendum process itself.

BlakeWait, say that again. The rules for making rules?

MaxExactly. Voters are being asked how much power voters should have.

BlakeThat's a little dizzy making.

MaxRight? Now, the tax side gets bigger depending on who's counting. The National Taxpayers Union has a guide that counts fifty-nine statewide measures in twenty-four states touching taxes, budgeting, and related policy.

BlakeAnd NTU is an advocacy group. Limited government is the whole brand.

MaxYes. So keep that in your pocket. Their guide is useful, but it comes with a viewpoint.

BlakeWhich makes me ask, what even counts as a tax measure? Is a measure that caps how a legislature can raise revenue a tax measure or a budgeting measure?

MaxDepends on whose spreadsheet. Broad definition, you get fifty-nine. Narrow it to property tax alone, and the list shrinks fast.

BlakeSo fifty-nine isn't wrong, and the smaller number isn't wrong. They're answering different questions.

MaxThat's it. And the broader the bucket, the more a group can say taxes are on the ballot everywhere.

BlakeWhich for a group that wants lower taxes is a handy thing to say.

MaxI'm not accusing anyone.

BlakeOf course not. Just noticing.

MaxSeriously, though, the useful move is to hold both numbers. Ballotpedia tells you how crowded the whole ballot is, and the NTU guide tells you how a limited government group sees the tax slice of it.

BlakeAnd neither tells you how a given measure will actually play out. Counting ballot lines is not the same as knowing what's in them. That gap is exactly what your own sample ballot closes, which we'll come back to before we sign off.

MaxAnyway, within that pile, property tax is the biggest cluster. So what's the number there, Blake?

BlakeThat's the one I came for. Start with the count.

MaxOkay, property tax. Ballotpedia's Nicole Fisher counted thirteen statewide property tax measures in seven states this year.

BlakeThirteen. And that includes one that's already done, right?

MaxRight. Louisiana voters defeated Amendment Four back on May fifteenth.

BlakeSo twelve left for November third.

MaxTwelve, spread across Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Wyoming.

BlakeLouisiana shows up twice on M-map. Already lost one in May, and it's back.

MaxOh, man. Yes. Five more on the ballot there, which is a lot of homework for one state.

BlakePoor Louisiana. Now, what are they actually voting on? Thirteen is a number. Thirteen what?

MaxFour are exemptions for homeowners. Three are about assessments, meaning how the house gets valued in the first place.

BlakeAnd the other six?

MaxFour are exemptions for farms, businesses, and other non-residential property. One is about rate authority. One restricts imposing property taxes at all.

BlakeHold on. Who put these on the ballot? Because I assumed voters did the pen work here.

MaxTwelve of the thirteen came from state legislatures. Lawmakers referred them.

BlakeTwelve of thirteen.

MaxJust one came through citizens collecting signatures, and we'll get to it.

BlakeOkay. I'll wait. But let me ask the question I actually care about. Is there a track record? Do voters like cutting property taxes, or do they get nervous?

MaxBallotpedia looked back to twenty twenty through twenty twenty-five. Voters decided fifty-eight statewide property tax measures in that stretch.

BlakeAnd?

MaxForty-five approved and thirteen defeated.

BlakeWow. That's roughly three out of four passing.

MaxYeah, and the most common type was homeowner exemptions, twenty-four of them.

BlakeSo the single most common thing on these ballots is a break for people who live in their own house, which is exactly what the most common four this year are too.

MaxSame category, yes.

BlakeI'd be careful, though. A past approval rate tells me what voters tolerated, not what they'll do in three weeks. Those earlier measures had different wording, different states, different campaigns.

MaxFair. I'm not calling any of them. The history just says homeowners have rarely turned down a break when it's offered.

BlakeAnd the category matters here. A homeowner exemption is a break you can feel on your own bill, and it's a different ask than an assessment rule that most people never think about.

MaxTrue. Assessments are the quiet ones. Three of the thirteen this year deal with how a house gets valued, and those are harder to explain on a yard sign.

BlakeRarely, but thirteen times they did, and Louisiana just did it in May.

MaxYou keep coming back to Louisiana.

BlakeIt's the only live data point we've got for this year.

MaxAnyway, which one should people watch hardest? Honestly, I'd say the ones that touch your own bill most directly. Four of this year's thirteen are homeowners exemptions, and those are the ones where a voter can do the math at the kitchen table.

BlakeKitchen-table math, with the caveat that a lot of us can't see the budget on the other side of it.

MaxNow to the two states with the biggest stakes for homeowners, Florida and Tennessee.

BlakeFlorida first, then. I've got questions about Amendment Three.

MaxFlorida first. Amendment Three would provide a homestead exemption from non-school property taxes. That's how Ballotpedia describes it in its roundup of the thirteen measures.

BlakeNon-school, so the school portion of the bill stays exactly where it is.

MaxRight, and Florida TaxWatch, which put out a quick guide to it, says it needs sixty percent approval on November third.

BlakeSixty? Not a simple majority.

MaxNo, sixty.

BlakeOh, man. That's a high bar. Does it replace Save Our Homes? Because that's the cap on how fast a homestead's assessed value can grow, and Florida homeowners guard it like a family recipe.

MaxThe Florida TaxWatch says it would not eliminate or replace Save Our Homes, so you have the cap and the new exemption stacked.

BlakeStacked. Okay. So who pays? A homestead exemption doesn't make the cost vanish. Somebody's budget has a hole in it, or somebody else's bill goes up.

MaxThe sources I have don't answer that, and I'm not gonna invent a number for you.

BlakeFair. Then it's the question to ask your county before you vote.

MaxNow, the part I find odd, the phase-in. Current permanent residents get the larger exemption starting in twenty twenty-seven.

BlakeAnd newcomers?

MaxAnyone who moves in after December thirty-first, twenty twenty-six starts at fifty thousand dollars.

BlakeWait for it.

MaxAnd reaches two hundred fifty thousand dollars after five years.

BlakeHold on. So two neighbors in identical houses, one who arrived in December and one who arrived in January, get different treatment for five years.

MaxThat's how the TaxWatch guide lays it out, yes.

BlakeHuh. Is that a fairness problem or just a transition? I honestly can't tell yet. A buyer next spring would feel it.

MaxA buyer next spring is the person I'd worry about. Fifty thousand is a long way from two hundred fifty.

BlakeWelcome to Florida. Here's your waiting period.

MaxOkay, Tennessee. Amendment Two would amend the state constitution to prohibit the legislature from imposing a state property tax.

BlakeWait, does Tennessee have one now?

MaxThe Ballotpedia piece doesn't say, so I won't guess. What it does say is that Amendment Two has received the most campaign contributions of all thirteen measures.

BlakeOf all thirteen? How much are we talking?

MaxThe Yes On 2 campaign reported one hundred and nine thousand five hundred dollars through June thirtieth.

BlakeEh, that's the biggest pile, and it's not a huge pile. A decent city council race could spend that.

MaxWhich tells you how quiet this whole category is.

BlakeAnd what's funny is the legislature is asking voters to tie the legislature's hands.

MaxTennessee would fence in its own lawmakers on taxes. North Carolina is next with its own set of constitutional amendments.

BlakeThen let's go to North Carolina.

MaxNorth Carolina. WUNC published an explainer on September twenty-second saying voters will decide three proposed amendments to the state's constitution.

BlakeThree? Alongside the Senate race, Congress, the General Assembly?

MaxAll of it, same ballot. The WUNC explainer lists those races right next to the amendments.

BlakeOkay, now the brief. It frames North Carolina as an income tax cap, voter ID, and property tax limits.

MaxOh, man, and here's my problem. The WUNC piece I have in front of me confirms three amendments. The excerpt doesn't spell out what each one does.

BlakeSo we hold the brief's version loosely.

MaxLoosely. The title of the WUNC piece does mention property tax and voter ID, but I'm not gonna hand you amendment language I haven't read.

BlakeFair. Check the actual ballot text before you repeat any of it at a dinner party.

MaxPlease.

BlakeBut Max, forget the specifics for a second. Why does a tax cap go in a constitution at all? A statute does the same job.

MaxSame job until the next legislature repeals it with a simple vote.

BlakeRight. A constitutional rule needs voters to undo it.

MaxExactly. That's the appeal, and the cost is flexibility. If a rule turns out badly, you've bolted it to the frame of the house.

BlakeSame question for election rules. Whoever writes them is writing the terms of their own job.

MaxWhich is why voters get nervous about leaving that to legislators.

BlakeHmm.

MaxAnd that's the tension. Bolting a rule to the constitution protects it from the next legislature, but it also protects it from being fixed quickly if it was written badly.

BlakeSo whichever rule you're asked about, the question is who can change it later? That's worth reading for on your ballot.

MaxSo far, legislatures sent these to voters. Wyoming is where the voters went around them. Okay, Wyoming, Initiative One. Ballotpedia's news report says legislatures referred twelve of these measures. This is the one that got there through the citizen initiative process.

BlakeOnly one?

MaxOnly one. Everybody else asked permission from the people. Wyoming's people just wrote the thing.

BlakeOh, man. Okay. What does it actually do? I want the mechanics before the drama.

MaxIt exempts fifty percent of the assessed value of a homeowner's primary residence from property tax, half the assessed value off the top.

BlakeAnd the official ballot language, the secretary of state's version, how tight is it?

MaxIt defines homeowner, it defines primary residence, it sets a residency requirement, and it's a statute, not a constitutional amendment.

BlakeWhich, after our last stretch about locking things into constitutions, is a different animal.

MaxRight. A later legislature could, in principle, go back at it. I'm not gonna guess how easily.

BlakeFair. Hold on, though. Is this a common thing out there, citizens doing this?

MaxBallotpedia's page on it calls it the first citizen initiative in Wyoming in thirty decades.

BlakeThirty decades.

MaxAnd the first there to touch tax policy at all.

BlakeWow, so this isn't a routine tool. Somebody had to dust it off.

MaxAnd there's paperwork on the homeowner's end. You have to file a sworn claim with the county assessor.

BlakeSworn. Not a checkbox on a form.

MaxThat's what Ballotpedia describes, yes.

BlakeSo it's a citizen-written rule with a paperwork step at the county level. That's a lot of moving parts with something that began as a petition.

MaxAnd the county assessor is a local office, which is why this isn't only a state story. Local offices are where the claims get filed.

BlakeOkay, now the part I keep circling. Fifty percent off the assessed value means the county collects less. Who makes up the difference?

MaxNobody, as written. Ballotpedia notes the initiative has no backfill for local government revenue losses.

BlakeNo backfill. So the roads, the sheriff, the library eat it, or somebody raises something else.

MaxI'd only say what the source says. No backfill. The rest is what you'd have to watch.

BlakeFine, but size it for me. How many homes are we talking?

MaxAn earlier Ballotpedia report cited a review department estimate of about a hundred and seventy-three thousand eligible properties.

BlakeAn estimate from an earlier report, so I'd hold that number loosely.

MaxYeah. Treat it as a ballpark, not a final count.

BlakeStill, that's a lot of front doors with a smaller bill and no line item saying where the money comes from.

MaxWhich is the trade-off in plain terms. The homeowner sees a smaller bill, and the county sees a smaller revenue line with nothing in the source saying how that gap gets handled.

BlakeAnd a sworn claim means homeowners have to do something to get it. I'd wanna know how many eligible folks actually file, but nothing we have answers that.

MaxAnd that's the turn for me. Every other state so far is lawmakers saying, "Here, voters, please approve this limit on us."

BlakeWhereas here, the citizens wrote the rule and handed it to everybody else, county commissioners included.

MaxWhich brings up the obvious question: If local governments lose revenue, who runs the biggest piece of local budgets?

BlakeSchools.

MaxSchools. Money for local government leads straight to the school board table. Education Week ran a roundup on October seventh. It promises a unique K-12 ballot initiative. Its summary line says one state would require the Star-Spangled Banner to be broadcast in schools.

BlakeHold on. Broadcasted how?

MaxUh, the summary doesn't say, and I'm not going to guess. It also says other measures on the ballot would limit taxes.

BlakeSo the same ballot has an anthem measure and a tax limit, and both land on a school district. Oh, man, that's a strange pairing.

MaxRight? And that's why I'd read the school and bond lines first. That's where the local bill shows up.

BlakeWhy there specifically? Walk me through it.

MaxIf property tax limits tighten what local governments can collect, then school board decisions and bond measures are where a district's choices become visible to voters. That's my reasoning, not something Education Week spelled out.

BlakeAnd let's be straight about what we don't have. The sources don't detail what any school board spends or how it spends it.

MaxCorrect. We have a one-line summary from Education Week and a count of tax measures. What a bond would build, what a board's budget looks like, none of that is in front of us. That's homework for the actual documents.

BlakeFine, but now the big question: self-government working or lost trust? Because the sources here don't settle it.

MaxNo, they don't. I'll take a side anyway. Self-government. Voters in Wyoming picked up a pen the Constitution lets them hold, and that's a feature.

BlakeMm, I land on lost trust. Twelve of thirteen came from legislators, and the legislators are writing limits on themselves and their towns. You don't fence in people you trust.

MaxOkay, but those can both be true.

BlakeThey can. I still say the second one is the louder signal.

MaxFair. Same ballot either way. Blake, what do we do about it? Right. Pull up your sample ballot this week. Your county election office has it. Start at the bottom, where the school board and bond measures hide.

BlakeBecause nobody's covering those.

MaxNobody, which is exactly why they're yours. Mark what you don't understand, then find the actual text before early voting starts.

BlakeTwo asks before we go. Send this episode to one person who'd never look at their own ballot.

MaxOne person. Your neighbor, your sister, the guy at church who has opinions about everything.

BlakeEspecially him. And subscribe, so Saturdays show up on their own.

MaxYour town needs you in the room, Max.

BlakeBlake, I'm already looking for my county's meeting schedule.

MaxGood. See you Saturday.