Politics / The Real Mandate

...Green impulses appear in the body politic in vague answers to general questions about the desirability of trees and parks...

...Arizona taxpayer leader Sydney Hoff points out that not since 1978—in the heady days of Proposition 13 (Jarvis-Gann) in California and copycat measures elsewhere—had there been so many anti-tax initiatives on the ballot...

...Time and Newsweek found decisive "mandates," mandates for "change...

...Wyoming and Florida cast 77 percent of their ballots for term limits...

...Colorado went Arizona one better...

...The DLC argues that the mandate for moving left is limited at best...

...And victims' rights groups are planning more initiatives to toughen penalties for violent repeat offenders...

...They voted in favor of constitutional restraints on spending, against higher taxes, and against individual programs for new spending (even when these were gussied up as guaranteeing "better" education, environment, infrastructure, or health care...

...Florida, adopted a "taxpayer bill of rights...

...created to move the Democrats back from knee-jerk leftism, argues that Clinton's centrist positions on welfare reform, the death penalty, and the line-item veto won the day...

...Connecticut, Colorado, and Rhode Island voted in spending limitation measures...

...The initiative results do more than simply reassure the Reagan coalition that its premises and electoral support remain intact, if ignored...

...Let the opposition have the capital city—seize the countryside...

...But the silence of the press should fool no one as to the seriousness of the term limits movement: November 3, 1992 changed the face of American politics forever...

...In six years, Tom Foley is out...

...But just what message were voters sending...

...If the latter, then another Reagan could reunite the coalition and defeat Clinton if he governs as a liberal...

...For those willing to listen, the voice of the people came through loud and clear on November 3, 1992...

...John Dingell, scourge of whole industries, will be a private citizen...

...Arizona passed Proposition 108, which amended the Constitution to require a two-thirds vote of the state legislature to enact any new tax increase...

...The media's lack of critical analysis is matched only by that of Specter himself,who—after admitting that the "religious right" was responsible for his comefrom-behind 1992 re-election—is now trying his hand at Christian-bashing...

...Question 1, passed with 54 percent of the vote, requires that all tax hikes or bond issues at the state or local level be put to a popular vote...

...Reagan Republicans argue that their coalition simply lacks a leader...

...The Environment...

...these initiatives also forbid a repetition of the Mike Dukakis scandal (allowing criminals furloughs and early releases without notifying victims and their families...

...No member of the Washington press has been rude enough to point out that the abortion language in the 1992 platform is the same as the language in the winning platforms of 1984 and 1988 or that 40 percent of George Bush's 1992 vote came from evangelical Protestants...

...Or were they reacting to the Bush Administration's orgy of spending increases and its regulatory binging...

...A poll by Fabrizio, McLaughlin and Associates found that 40 percent of conservatives and 30 percent of Republicans voted against Bush...

...Moreover, voters must be mailed a set of arguments for and against...

...The success of the term limits movement in creating what amounted to a national plebiscite suggests a strategy for conservatives...

...Clinton argued that taxes should be raised on the "rich" as a matter of fairness...

...Note that these are not advisory votes, like the "nuclear freeze" referenda of 1982: they are the law...

...The Democratic Leadership Council, Grover Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform...

...Hillary Clinton's coterie argues that any vote against Bush was a vote against the "Reagan/Bush years...

...Ohioans said no thanks, by a whoppingly un-Green margin of 78 to 12 percent, to a penny-a-pound tax on toxic chemicals...

...This wing of the party has formed a "Republican Majority Coalition," which is given a more than respectful hearing by the press corps...

...The Republican party has similar divides...

...Crime...

...Massachusetts voters opted, by 60 to 40 percent, against a "modest" proposal to establish an "Environmental Challenge Fund" by levying a two-cent tax on each 50,000 gallons of toxic material manufactured in, or imported into, the commonwealth...

...When voters rejected President Bush—who had himself rejected the low-tax policies of President Reagan—were they demanding a return to Reaganism or a leap forward to the even higher taxes implicit in Clintonism...

...Investing in Our Children...

...Such votes- can only take place in general elections—not in by-elections or primaries, when government workers remember to vote and the rest of us forget...

...So while Newsweek is imagining gale winds to the left, the American public is still listing comfortably center-right...

...This measure—the Clinton campaign slogan writ large—was voted down, 58 to 42 percent...

...T he nation is stuck with Clinton for the next four years, and both the Clinton Administration and Republicans eager to recapture the White House need honest answers to the question of whether the low-tax, limited-government, strong-defense, traditional-values Republican coalition is finally broken, or whether it simply failed to find a presidential candidate among Clinton, Bush, and Perot...

...But while Clinton was "picking the Republican electoral lock" on California, the state was voting on Initiative 167, which would have raised taxes on the wealthy—corporations and those making over $250,000 a year...

...only a cigarette tax hike of 25 cents passed in Massachusetts—still the home of the Puritans...

...Bush, they argue, abandoned Reagan's most successful policies: low taxes, spending restraint, deregulation, and confrontation with the Democratic leadership in Congress...

...Even with the deck stacked by Roemer's propagandists, Coloradans declined to shell out for more of the same, 54 to 46 percent...

...South Dakota voters rejected an initiative that would have imposed a personal and corporate income tax of between 2 and 5 percent to replace the sales tax on groceries, clothing, and utilities...

...If, however, the nation has truly moved left and would welcome—even demand—higher taxes for more government programs, then Clinton can move strongly left and win popular support...

...There now emerges a strategy recommended by the late Mao Tse-tung...

...Of the twelve major tax-increase and bond initiatives, eleven were defeated...

...Bush raised taxes, increased spending more than even Jimmy Carter, added 20,000 new regulators to the public payroll, and cut secret deals with House speaker Tom Foley and Senate majority leader George Mitchell—whom he called his "friends" after each date-rape...

...Only the vote against re-establishing capital punishment for murder in the District of Columbia can give liberals any comfort (and it may be cold comfort, as many liberals are soon to be punished for their electoral success by having to live there...

...Strong pressure from the National Education Association and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees unions makes the anti-tax mandate of 1992 all the more impressive...

...The central plank of Clinton's health plan—to require employers to provide health care to all employees—was offered as Proposition 166 to Californians, who rejected it by 68 to 32 percent...

...In recently rehabilitated Jimmy Carter's home state, voters were offered the chance to create a "Transportation Trust Fund...

...While giving Clinton a plurality of the vote, New Yorkers nixed this Keynesian measure, 56 to 44 percent...

...Taxpayer groups in several states plan to marry the Arizona and Colorado initiatives—requiring a legislative supermajority and a popular vote to raise taxes...

...The Wall Street Journal noted that this was as close to a national referendum as the United States has ever known...

...Supported by the NRA's Crime Strike project, which works with victims' groups nationally...

...Should the governor veto a tax bill, three-quarters of both houses would be needed to override...

...California rolled back part of Governor Pete Wilson's massive 1991 tax increase by repealing part of the sales tax on snack foods...

...In North Dakota, voters said no to Initiative 4: higher taxes for more water projects...

...Enough said...

...Health Care...

...Raw political power, they think, will allow them to act on their left-wing principles...

...This "progressive" measure was rejected, 74 to 26 percent...

...Hillary Clinton's favorite theme was addressed by the people of Colorado on November 3. Democratic Governor Roy Roemer put on the ballot an initiative neutrally titled "Pennies for the Children," which would have increased the sales tax by "only a penny" to pay for, well, more of the same stuff the public schools of Colorado have been providing its children for the past several decades...

...but it seems unlikely that Al Gore's environmental awareness will supplant the Republican coalition's Kempite fixation with economic growth...

...Reagan Republicans are wearing flashing neon "I Told You So" neckties...

...Georgians demurred, 63 to 36 percent...

...And term limits have had two further victories in Congress already: first, pro-limit Dick Armey of Texas defeated anti-limit Jerry Lewis of California for the chairmanship of the important House Republican Conference...

...In most states, that means six years for House members and twelve for senators...

...Liberal Republicans—led by Warren Rudman of New Hampshire, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, and Tom Campbell of California—hold that it was the pro-life language in the party's platform, and appeals to evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics, that cost Bush the election...

...California, home to fifty-two House members, passed limits by 63 percent...

...and Republican freshmen forced a successful vote to limit the terms of all ranking Republican members of congressional committees to six years...

...Imagine for a minute that fourteen states had banned the death penalty or raised taxes on the rich or passed a mandatory recycling law: it would have been seen as a historic shift, and the press would have touted it as one of the major stories of the year...

...Voters in Colorado, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and New Mexico cast an average vote of more than 80 percent in support of the victims' rights agenda...

...In 1994, eight other states will vote on the issue...

...More instructive than theoretical speculation, though, is a look at the fate of initiative questions on ballots in forty-three states.1 And not surprisingly, the establishment media has all but ignored the mandate from America's other national plebiscite: Term Limits...

...Bush, while in favor of them, chose not to campaign on the issue...

...The closest call cane in Washington state, where a strongly financed campaign—courtesy of House speaker Foley's ability to "encourage" donations to the anti–term limit 'The states with no initiatives or referenda were Delaware, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Vermont...

...Four states allow eight years for House members, and the two Dakotas allow a total of twelve years in Congress...

...Infrastructure...

...Clinton, in obeisance to congressional barons Mitchell and Foley, opposed term limitations...

...The verdict...

...Washington will fall soon enough...

...Fairness...

...Unsurprisingly, as pollsters and pundits on both sides busy themselves torturing data and reformulating questions, liberals find that the nation has moved left, while conservatives are more convinced than ever that the Reagan coalition will hold...

...Environmentalism as a political force appears a "paper tiger," to quote Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute...

...With the 1990 victory for limits in Colorado, the 1992 tidal wave means that 156 members of the House and 30 senators are now under limits...

...Were these voters repudiating their long-held principles...

...Voters still feel less compassion for William Horton than for his victims...

...Voters in five states addressed the right of crime victims to be heard at sentencing, parole hearings, and other junctures in criminal proceedings...

...Tax and Spend...

...In the fourteen states that voted on such measures, term limits took 20 million votes, while Clinton took only 14 million...

...Seventy-two percent of Arizonans voted for the measure...

...Term Limits, the national group supporting the term limitation initiative movement, predicts eight more state referenda on the issue in 1994...

...If successful, they will bring the number of statutorily limited House members to 205 and senators to 46...

...Term limitations for members of the House of Representatives and the Senate were on the ballot in fourteen states...

...The higher taxes would have paid for reducing the sales tax by a quarter-point and repealing the sales tax on snack food...

...California is now home to one of every ten voters in the nation...

...And to guard against federal funds sneaking into Colorado to replace state and local funds, jurisdictions cannot increase their spending faster than inflation and population without a vote of the people...

...All fourteen constitutional amendments passed, with an average of 66 percent in favor...

...In Colorado it will be "No taxation without direct voter approval...

...11...

...Mario Cuomo campaigned vigorously for a bond initiative that would commit $800 million to "create jobs" building "infrastructure" in New York state...

...Voters also rejected, again by 60 to 40 percent, a measure to require reduced packaging and greater use of recycled materials, starting in 1996...

...USA Today helpfully explained that this was a "landslide...

...Monies were to be raised through higher gasoline and aviation fuel taxes and spent by the General Assembly...

...Six of eignt LdA and spending cuts or limitations offered to voters passed...

...cause—narrowed the margin to 52 percent...

...Maine voters outlawed the state legislature's practice of mandating spending for local government without providing the funding...