The post House Bill 2058: Tax Votes, Elections, and Special Taxing Districts appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Listen on Apple Podcasts 

Listen on Stitcher 

Listen on SoundCloud

The post DEI Statements, Biggest Budget Yet, and Pot Tax Vote Tuesday appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Listen on Apple Podcasts 

Listen on Sticher 

Listen on SoundCloud

The post Charging Station Changes, Use Tax Votes, and Gas Tax Holidays appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Douglas Murray joined Colombo and Katie on NewsTalkSTL to discuss what we can learn from some of the elections held this week, his November 10 event in St. Louis, and more.

Save your spot for November 10

Listen on Apple Podcasts 

Listen on Sticher 

Listen on SoundCloud

The post Douglas Murray: This Should Be A Lesson appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute has been similarly concerned with American schools teaching students a form of civics that is “participation-centric.” It is of course important for students to learn how to vote and how to contact their elected officials, but, as Hess argues, this is the easy stuff of civics education.

As Hess puts it:

A participation-centric approach to civics education is insufficient because it emphasizes what citizens must do to get their way but slights the reality that we frequently won’t get our way—and can even give students the sense that it’s somehow illegitimate when we don’t.  In a nation as sprawling, dynamic, and diverse as ours, it’s a sure thing that many citizens won’t get their way—even when everyone is engaged and operating in good faith. Civics education must help students understand this reality and the safeguards that protect us when we don’t get our way.

Today’s election is a great opportunity to reinforce this idea. Very few people, anywhere, will cast a ballot in which every single candidate, ballot initiative, or constitutional amendment they select will win. Everyone will be a mix of disappointed and satisfied.

So what can teachers do? They can explain that our Founding Fathers anticipated this very thing. They can explain how our American system diffuses power both horizontally (among the branches of government) and vertically (among the federal, state, and local governments) so that no one group is ever entirely in control. This allows the various factions (as James Madison called them) to keep each other in check and work out their differences in a variety of different venues. They can tell students that are upset with the result of the federal election to look at what is happening in their state or local community, or vice versa. Teachers can explain that even if their preferred candidate did not win, our system of government has safeguards built in to protect them and that there will be more elections in the future, and more chances to have their voices heard.

Elections are about more than winning. They are the process by which a free people adjudicate their differences. If we focus too much on the result of elections, we risk delegitimizing the process. If we erode the norms and values upon which elections are built, we risk losing the means of maintaining a representative democracy.

The post Election Day Is a Great Day for Civics Education appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The GO Bond Bait and Switch

The GO Bonds Will Cost You Much More Than You’re Being Told

The GO Bond Doesn’t Risk Your Home – Just Your Wallet 

Taxpayer’s General Obligation Bond Gamble 

The post The KC GO Bonds: Where Will the Money Go? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The post Patrick Tuohey Appears on KCPT’s Ruckus appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Last year the Missouri legislature considered a few bills that would’ve done this. Unfortunately the fiscal notes associated with these bills (basically a price tag for a new law) indicated that the elections would cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. One of the problems with these analyses was the assumption that elections would have to be conducted by traditional ballots, manned by hundreds of temporary employees hired just for elections. Modern technology makes this unnecessary.

With traditional voting, paid or volunteer workers need to be on location working polls. Moreover, specialized voting equipment needs to be at every polling location. Telephone- and internet-based voting solve these issues. With telephone and internet voting, personnel do not need to be at every polling location, and the voting equipment is nothing more than a telephone or personal computer. A voter just dials a number or goes to a website, enters a PIN or password, and votes at his or her convenience.

Telephone- and internet-based voting give voters greater flexibility. Not only can you vote from anywhere with an internet connection or mobile phone reception, but polls can remain open longer without significantly increasing costs. Imagine having a week to vote and being able to vote late at night or early in the morning. Much better than heading to a poll, parking, standing in line, and then rushing back to the office.

Security is an issue with telephone- and internet-based voting, just as it is with traditional voting, but internet voting can be encrypted. 256-bit encryption, the same encryption many major banks use, is as cost effective as it is secure.

Price doesn’t have to stand in the way of a policy that would empower government workers. If we’re forward thinking and embrace technological innovation, union elections can held at a reasonable cost.

The post Using Technology to Provide Low-Cost Union Elections appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

So how low cost are union elections? If the state contracts out with a company that specializes in providing elections, the price tag could be less than 1% of union dues.

When Wisconsin contracted with the American Arbitration Association (AAA) to provide union elections for its public employees, the cost was about $1.50 per voter per election. AAA is a well respected arbitration firm, but there are other options. For example, a service called “Election Buddy” by Event IQ, Inc., conducts elections for Harvard and Yale Universities and thousands of other companies internationally for approximately 9 cents per voter. $0.09 to $1.50 is a wide range, but even at the top end of that range, elections are inexpensive.

For comparison purposes, consider the dues charged to state employees by some of the major government unions. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) charges Missouri state employees $16.93 per pay period, or $406.32 per year. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) charges patient care professional employees $22.50 per pay period, or $540 per year. Even if the state contracts with a more expensive arbitration firm, rather than a relatively less costly corporate election firm, and ends up charging each union around $1.50 per voter, with an election every two years that’s less than two dollars out of the $812.64 AFSMCE collects per person during that period or the $1,080.00 SEIU collects.

Contracting out for union election is just one way of saving money. By contracting out for elections, the state will not need to hire additional staff, pay for increased travel expenses for staff conducting elections, or purchase new voting equipment. The savings will allow the state to charge a much lower fee to unions for conducting these elections, saving public employees money.

The post Just How Low Cost Is Labor Reform? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

If the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations (DOLIR)—the agency tasked with managing government union elections—had examined Wisconsin, another state that has a law like this, they may have seen how the agency would have been able to conduct elections with existing resources.

Instead of looking to Wisconsin, where similar elections are already held at no additional cost to taxpayers, DOLIR estimated that it would have to hire at least 21 new employees and 760 temporary elections officers to physically conduct each election. According to DOLIR, these elections and new hires would cost $1.5 million to $2.7 million a year. While $2 million is not a huge portion of a multibillion-dollar budget, it is a significant amount to most of the people paying for it, especially when DOLIR could eliminate that cost altogether by following Wisconsin’s lead.

The Wisconsin Employment Relations Council (WERC) holds union elections at no cost to the taxpayer. This cost savings is possible for two reasons: First, WERC contracts out with a respected arbitration company, the American Arbitration Association, for its union elections. In these elections, workers vote through telephone or the Internet using a secure ID number, rather than a traditional paper ballot. This service has been used successfully in Wisconsin for a couple years now, providing convenient, low-cost union elections to government workers. Second, WERC charges a filing fee to a union seeking election. The filing fee is administered on a sliding-scale basis, charging more to larger unions and less to smaller unions, and is enough to cover the cost of elections. Because of these two smart moves by WERC, Wisconsin began holding elections for state workers in 2013 without increasing WERC’s staff or its impact on the state budget.

Why didn’t DOLIR look to the practices of other state agencies when estimating the cost of these elections? That seems like the first thing you’d do when estimating the cost of a new government practice. I don’t know why DOLIR screwed up so badly. I do, however, know that government union elections can be an inexpensive and reliable way to protect our government workers’ voices when it comes to their unions and professional associations.

The post Missouri Could Save Millions by Looking to Wisconsin appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

But I’ve been thinking about this issue a great deal lately. It does seem quite strange that our system would permit a relatively tiny fraction of the population to pass laws that will be binding on everyone. I also find it strange that elected officials can claim their positions without having earned the explicit approval of a significant percentage of the people who will be bound by their authority. After all, most legislative bodies have a quorum requirement that ensures that there must be a critical mass of support before they can take action. Wouldn’t it make sense for this principle to be applied to all votes?

Perhaps we should consider amending the Missouri Constitution to provide that no proposition may be considered passed and no politician may be considered duly elected unless a certain percentage of registered voters actually casts ballots on that issue or candidate. If any given issue or candidate cannot motivate enough people to come to the polls to vote in their favor, perhaps the people would be better off without them. For propositions, this simply means the status quo would continue. For offices, I submit that they should remain unfilled until the people of the relevant jurisdiction have called a special election that successfully attracts the requisite number of voters. If the people themselves have not come up with a person that a truly representative percentage wants to hold that office, wouldn’t it be better to let them wait until they have settled on a well-supported candidate?

The post Voter Turnout appeared first on Show-Me Institute.