Rule of Minority Is Tyranny in School Bond Votes

Voters in nine school districts turned out in landslide numbers last Tuesday to support local bond proposals. But, as happens too often in California, the electoral majority was thwarted by a tyrannical minority.

Somehow, that just doesn’t seem American--minority rule rather than majority rule.

If the majority wants to increase property taxes a tad to fix leaky roofs, install air conditioning and wire up for computers--or build classrooms to replace depressing portables--why should a minority be allowed to stop them?

Because, replies the minority, while any citizen can vote, not everyone owns property; renters don’t always get the taxes passed on to them. But this argument usually is made by people who object to paying any kind of tax, who ignore the wisdom of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr: “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.” In this case, an educated society.

California is one of only four states that requires a two-thirds vote to approve local school bonds. There’s a misperception that California’s mandate was imposed by Proposition 13, the 1978 property tax-cutting initiative. Actually, it’s a 120-year-old relic, dating to an anti-tax revolt that swept America following the Civil War.

Eight other states demand a lesser super-majority vote--say, 60% or 55%. But 38 states--including every other big one--require only a simple majority or allow local elected officials to decide about bonds.

Putting this in perspective, a 60% vote is considered a landslide. Ronald Reagan never got a 60% vote in California. A 66.7% vote is almost unheard of in a competitive contest. Not even sacred Prop. 13 was supported by two-thirds of the voters.

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Of 28 local school bond issues Tuesday, 16 passed, according to School Services, an education consulting firm. But every one of the proposals received at least 55% of the vote. Of the dozen “failures,” nine got over 60% support.

“Those are the ones that eat your heart out--where local people work for months and get 65% of the vote and feel defeated,” says political consultant Larry Tramutola, who runs school bond campaigns.

For example: people in the William S. Hart Union High School District, serving the burgeoning Newhall-Saugus-Castaic area. There, a $52-million bond proposal was “rejected” by a 65.4% yes vote.

“Our bond didn’t pass, but we have some real winners: 2,000 students who got involved every night and every weekend, phone-banking, going door-to-door,” says Hart Supt. Bob Lee. “We won a lot of great future citizens.”

Now because of overcrowding, Lee says, the district will have to consider evening classes that interrupt family life.

He blames a low voter turnout of 15%, caused by long work commutes.

But low turnouts actually have helped to pass some bond issues, and increasingly are becoming a strategic ploy.

“They’re stealth campaigns that go in under the radar,” says Bob Blattner, a lobbyist for School Services. “You identify your voters early, communicate with them and don’t let anyone else know an election’s going on.”

A good example was a recent school bond election in Sacramento. Two previous bond measures had failed, but this $195-million proposal won with an overwhelming 78% vote. The election was held in mid-October--an unusual time--on the same day as Back to School Night. All the polling places were at schools.

Everyone who had voted in the last bond election was phoned and asked to support the new measure. “Anyone who hesitated, we just hung up and never called again,” says veteran consultant Richie Ross. “If they committed, they got more calls and mail.

“We had to resist everyone who wanted to do a press conference. I said, ‘We don’t want any attention.’ I low-balled it because I didn’t want the creeps to come out.”

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In the March 7 primary, Californians will get another chance--through Prop. 26--to lower the vote requirement for local school bonds to a simple majority. A similar measure failed miserably in 1993, getting only 31% of the vote.

But that was during a recession, before education became the voters’ top concern and while the school establishment was focused on killing a voucher proposal. This time, Prop. 26 is backed by education and business interests that plan to spend up to $20 million.

The main opponent is the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., rooted in Prop. 13. It contends Prop. 26 would lead to substantially higher property taxes.

But what the anti-tax crowd forgets is that by paying another, say, $75 annually in taxes, they’re not only investing in education--but also in property values. One of the first things a potential home buyer asks these days is, What’s the local school like?