Calling the Previous Question

Posted on by Patrick Ishmael

Last week I published a piece in Forbes about my concerns about the progress of this year’s legislative session. I wrote about the high expectations taxpayers had and the mandate they sent for legislative reform—including labor reform, tax reform, ethics reform, education reform, and many others. Some legislators, particularly in the Senate, have explained the legislative lethargy we’ve seen as the result of Senate tradition, where filibusters are generally allowed to go on for as long as the filibusterer chooses. But within that tradition, of course, is a way to sidestep the filibuster: calling the previous question.

A previous question motion, or “PQ,” allows for a vote on a bill or amendment if a majority of the chamber chooses, even if a filibuster is ongoing. The details of the motion are laid out in Rule 84 of the Rules of the Senate, which describes the PQ as follows: 

The previous question shall be in this form: “Shall the main question be now put?”. It shall only be admitted on written demand of five senators, and sustained by a vote of a majority of the senators elected, and in effect shall be put without debate, and bring the senate to direct vote upon a motion to commit, if such motion shall have been made; and if this motion does not prevail, then upon amendments, and then upon the main question. On demand for the previous question, a call of the senate shall be in order, but after a majority of the senators elected have sustained such a motion, no call shall be in order prior to the decision on the main question.

Translation? Five senators can initiate the PQ, and a majority of Senators can end a filibuster. Why Senators would hesitate to call a PQ isn’t necessarily captured in the rules, of course, and as we’ve seen in previous sessions, spurned Senators can grind the chamber to a halt by opposing motions that require unanimous consent or filibustering other legislation. This eats up time for other legislative priorities, which is essentially the point and central to the threat.

But the PQ shouldn’t be considered in a vacuum or treated as if it were dictated by immutable laws of Senatorial physics. Whereas the filibuster and the PQ are well within the realm of Senate tradition, so too are rules changes that would head off the sort of obstruction that has dissuaded previous sessions from appropriately using the PQ motion; after all, if rule changes were not part of Senatorial tradition, then there wouldn’t be rules explicitly allowing for changing Senate rules. “Tradition,” as it turns out, is both a shield and a sword, and legislators obstructing reform need to realize the “tradition” argument cuts the other way as well.

The real question, then, isn’t whether the PQ and related rule changes are consistent with Senate tradition—they are—but whether Senate leadership has the courage to break the reform logjam. Time will tell, but time is running out.

Mayor James Gets It Wrong

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

Kansas City Mayor James penned a guest commentary for The Kansas City Star on Wednesday. Unfortunately, it is riddled with errors and half-truths.

The Mayor begins with an assessment of the problem stemming from years of previous city councils failing to spend properly on infrastructure. Then he characterizes his solution thusly:

Over 20 years at approximately $40 million per year, this plan asks everyone in the city to invest through an annual property tax increase on both residential and commercial properties.

If the bond passes on April 4, the city says it will issue 20 different 20-year bonds. The last one will be issued in 2036 and will be paid off in 2055. The GO Bonds commit taxpayers to 40 years of debt, not 20. He also speaks to the cost to taxpayers:

The average residential property owner, with a $140,000 house and a $15,000 car, would see an increase in their property taxes each year for 20 years. That property would see an average of $8 added to their property tax each year. In year 20 that property owner would pay an average of $160 more than they pay today.

Both the Show-Me Institute and the Star have explained that this claim is inaccurate. The City Manager has stated that the cost is closer to $100 a year. The true cost of this bond to the owner of a $140,000 house and $15,000 car would be over $4,100.

The Mayor also refers to a report card that will account for projects and costs, but voters should be wary. If the GO Bond campaign—including this piece by the Mayor—is any indication, the report cards will be designed to present city spending in the best possible light. Remember, this is the same Mayor who refused to have the City’s Water Department audited.

As the Mayor points out, Kansas City is in this situation because important infrastructure and maintenance spending has been neglected. City leaders always find something else they want to fund. Without any significant changes to how City Hall operates—and this measure contains none—why should voters risk increasing their taxes just to see the exact same neglect repeated?

Can Legislation Make You Forget to Buy Insurance?

Posted on by Graham Renz

My colleague Michael McShane recently wrote a legislative “half-time report” on education reform in Missouri. While some bills haven’t moved as quickly or as far as he would like, education reform appears to be in much better shape than transportation reform. SB 185, a promising bill that would streamline regulations for transportation network companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft, has hit a snag. After moving uncontroversially through a senate committee, the bill has been filibustered.

SB 185 would create a statewide regulatory framework for TNCs, making it possible for them to operate across different jurisdictions that may have conflicting local regulations (or no TNC regulations at all). The law embodies free-market principles and could create jobs, improve mobility, and increase personal freedom. Show-Me Institute analysts, myself included, have testified in favor of SB 185 and similar legislation (e.g. HB 130) for years. So why is the bill hung up?

The Missouri Times reports that a senator:

opposes the legislation because he fears it will lead to fewer people, namely those who sign up to become drivers for TNCs like Uber, Lyft or Sidecar, to forgo paying for insurance. If a person signs up to become a driver, he says, and a TNC promises to cover his or her insurance when they’re driving for the company, drivers could forget their insurance only applies when they are on the clock when it comes time to renew their personal insurance.

In short, the bill seems to have been held up over concerns that TNC drivers, who use their own personal automobiles while on the clock, will simply forget they still need to purchase an individual auto policy.

If this concern is indeed motivating the filibuster, it seems misguided for two reasons. First, most TNC drivers work part time, and therefore likely own automobiles for personal use (57% of Uber drivers work less than 15 hours/week, and 86% work less than 35 hours/week.) Since these drivers own cars primarily to use themselves, it seems unlikely they’ll just forget to buy insurance once they start driving a few hours a day for a TNC. Second, to register your vehicle in Missouri, you need proof of insurance! It’s hard to understand why Missourians would forget to purchase (state-mandated) insurance just because they receive commercial coverage when driving for a TNC. It’s even harder to see how that fear would outweigh the potential benefits of sensible TNC regulations.

Proponents of SB 185 are still optimistic, but the future of free-market transportation reform is unclear. I remain hopeful that the policies embodied by SB 185 will eventually enable drivers to earn a living, help riders save money, and make it easier for all Missourians to get around. 

Debating GO Bond Policy

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

We were disappointed to learn that Mayor Sly James has turned down an offer to debate the Go bonds issue with us.  Nick Haines had extended the invitation for his KCPT program Week in Review. This is an important issue worthy of public debate.

Kansas City voters are being asked to consider borrowing $800 million dollars by issuing bonds backed by an increase in property taxes that will last 40 years. The campaign in favor of the proposal has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from some of the biggest corporations and special interests in Kansas City. The Mayor and members of the City Council have spoken at town hall meetings and on radio and television. And yet serious questions remain.

Show-Me Institute analysts have been skeptical of the city’s GO bond claims for some time. We were the first to point out that the city was proposing 40 years of debt (not 20), the first to expose the city’s misleading tax assumptions, and the first to point out that the city will be able to divert general revenue funds to other unrelated matters.

A policy debate is nothing to fear. For example, on March 20, Councilman Scott Wagner and I discussed the GO bond at the Indian Mound Neighborhood Association. The talk was professional, and I am confident that the room full of attendees were pleased to have both sides represented.

The public only benefits from a government that is transparent and accessible. We reiterate our invitation to the Mayor. If his schedule doesn’t permit the particular time and place offered by KCPT, how about another time and place?  With $800 million at stake, the decision voters make on the GO bond should be an informed one. We can think of no better way to educate Kansas City residents than a debate, and we would welcome an opportunity to join with the Mayor to present two different perspectives on this important issue. 

Coming Together for Free Speech

Posted on by Michael Q. McShane

In an earlier post I argued that Dr. Charles Murray’s assault at Middlebury College might mark a turning point in the battle for free speech on college campus. As if on cue, two leading American intellectuals published an open letter supporting free speech and encouraging other academics to sign it.

Robert George and Cornel West provide a great example of the kinds of open intellectual exchange that should happen on college campuses. For over a decade the two have team-taught a course at Princeton that examines important works of political philosophy and offers students a chance to see these works from George’s right-leaning and West’s left-leaning perspective.  (If you want some indication of how this might look, check out this video of George and West talking about the purpose of a liberal education at AEI last fall.)

The letter, now signed by hundreds of scholars, is worth reading in full, but I do want to highlight two paragraphs that I found especially compelling:

None of us is infallible. Whether you are a person of the left, the right, or the center, there are reasonable people of goodwill who do not share your fundamental convictions. This does not mean that all opinions are equally valid or that all speakers are equally worth listening to. It certainly does not mean that there is no truth to be discovered. Nor does it mean that you are necessarily wrong. But they are not necessarily wrong either. So someone who has not fallen into the idolatry of worshiping his or her own opinions and loving them above truth itself will want to listen to people who see things differently in order to learn what considerations—evidence, reasons, arguments—led them to a place different from where one happens, at least for now, to find oneself.

All of us should be willing—even eager—to engage with anyone who is prepared to do business in the currency of truth-seeking discourse by offering reasons, marshaling evidence, and making arguments. The more important the subject under discussion, the more willing we should be to listen and engage—especially if the person with whom we are in conversation will challenge our deeply held—even our most cherished and identity-forming—beliefs.

A good lesson for all of us.

Kansas City’s Food Desert Insanity

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

Kansas City has started to demolish the vacant grocery store at Linwood Blvd. and Prospect Ave. and will subsidize the construction and operation of a Sun Fresh grocery store at the same location to address what urban fabulists have dubbed a “food desert.” We’ve written about this issue here and here. Even amid scores of bad municipal policies, this one stands out.

First, food deserts themselves turn out to be a figment of the imagination. The USDA has published research indicating that people do not rely on the closest store to them. The Star makes this point by interviewing a woman who currently travels well past the closest market for her groceries. She may patronize the new grocery store when it opens, but she has other choices.

Second, the store that was in this location closed ten years ago. If there wasn’t enough private interest to keep it open at the time, or to renovate it while it sat empty for a decade, why does anyone think it will work now? (Besides the fact that taxpayers are subsidizing the rent to the tune of thousands of dollars a year.)

Third, the project keeps getting more expensive. It was estimated at $11 million in 2015. $15 million in 2016, and the latest estimate is $17 million.

In a city that struggles to offer basic services, this is one expensive misadventure that could have been avoided. 

Can the Kansas City Streetcar Expansion Be Built Even If It Wins?

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

The Kansas City Star published a story the other day which examined the new budget proposal from the Trump administration. The piece stated:

Trump’s budget, which would go into effect in October if Congress approves it, would eliminate the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program, a nearly $500 million grant program run by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The streetcar expansion plan is reliant on federal support. According to a 4-page document put out by the Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance, $100 million of the $227 million expansion cost to expand the downtown streetcar line would be provided by the federal government through the Small Starts program. But that program is also facing a funding freeze:

The New Starts program, which helps fund local transportation projects costing over $300 million (a sister program, Small Starts, assists with projects under that threshold), would be frozen. New applications to the program, which currently has $2.3 billion to spend annually through 2020, would be outright rejected, limiting any new grants and placing the onus on local and state government to fund additional projects. [Emphasis added.]

This means the Kansas City request for streetcar money could be rejected outright. And that money is required for the extension to take place. According to the Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance,

The project will require federal grant funding, and the applicant and recipient would be the City just like with the starter line. If federal funds are secured, public involvement in the engineering and design is required.

The language from the court ruling allowing the new transportation development district (TDD) throws another wrench in streetcar advocates’ plans: no taxes or assessments can be collected from within the district until enough external funding—in this case federal funds—are available. The Trump administration has made the availability of federal funds highly unlikely. Congress could seek to continue federal New Starts funding, according to Rich Sampson of the Community Transportation Association of America, but it will be an uphill climb. And even if streetcar funding is provided by Congress, the administration may choose not to spend it.

Voters are being asked to take the risk of expanding the TDD and levying on themselves a special property tax assessment and a sales tax contingent on the Trump administration coughing up 40% of the total streetcar expansion cost. Laying aside the merits of the policy at hand, voters should be wary of approving something that is dependent on a funding source that may be little more than wishful thinking.

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