The assumption that ‘local control’ is automatically good has helped make our state debt a very dangerous embarrassment. The reason is not complicated – bond elections are practically a slam dunk for the establishment. Philosophical devotion to ‘local control’ on the part of the only group that opposes the ruling class feathering their bed with taxpayer money – conservatives - is ensuring there are no real defenses to bond elections.
In our system, most votes are a vote for or against government largess flowing to a group. When a vote is below the ”visibility line” for average voters, as bond elections almost always are, the only people who show up to vote will be those who stand to gain from approval. (A vote being below the visibility line means it just isn't visible enough to break past work, family, church, entertainment, and everything else, and into the life of an average voter.) For these people such a vote is the biggest of the year; they have a more direct effect on their bottom line than who the president is.
On the other hand, votes for State Reps are not below the visibility line for average voters, which is why it would be wise for everything under the visibility line to be added to their profile and scored by watchdogs. If a vote is permitted by the legislature to drop out of sight by becoming a bond election, our state reps are effectively hiding spending from us in an especially cowardly way.
The truth is, legislators who voted to send the water fund to a direct vote were essentially casting the “yes” vote they were too cowardly to actually cast. Let’s face it, these bonds almost always pass, and they do so invisibly for everyone but those who work in and around state government.
Now, the other way to skin this cat is by making bond elections more visible somehow. That has been done with some success here and there in some local bond elections. But until that is happening automatically for every bond election in Texas, they will continue to be the establishment’s best friend, and foolish conservative devotion to abstract principles devoid of context will continue to be an expensive luxury.
As we said yesterday, the good news is that we are talking about bonds and school board elections finally. This represents advancement for conservatives, a reality that seems to escape Quorum Report, who reported as bad news for conservatives that bond elections and school board candidates opposed by conservatives won. Paul Burka is trying to spin straw into gold in the same way, claiming the passage of Prop 6 means the GOP is back to being free of conservative influence. Nobody tell Quorum Report or Burka that the political establishment has, until now, controlled these elections so completely that they got what they wanted without attention or opposition. Conservatives are in measurement mode on both of these fronts, and after yesterday finally have more than theory to shoot at.