Politics / Supermajority Men
Norquist, Grover G.
G eorge Voinovich, recently reelected governor of Ohio, reminds us why, even in the new Republican era, we need a constitutional amendment that requires a supermajority to raise taxes. Three years...
...Their efforts increased pressure on the Republican leadership, for the defeat of the amendment would be seen by the media—and many Americans—as a failure of the first item in the GOP's Contract With America...
...The Barton amendment went before the House at 11 a.m...
...gave the stripped-down amendment raised conservative concerns...
...Three years ago Voinovich crammed a billion-dollar tax hike through the Ohio legislature—the largest tax increase in the state's history...
...John Shadegg (R-Ariz...
...They agreed on the following strategy: all Republicans would vote for the unprotected balanced-budget amendment that evening...
...Newt...
...In October 1992, Oklahomans voted 56-44 to require voter approval of any tax hike that doesn't garner three-fourths of the state legislature...
...After the measure passed, Newt Gingrich placed a personal call to Nancy Reagan to announce the news...
...Nine states already require a supermajority to raise some or all taxes...
...Ronald Reagan advocated a balanced-budget amendment throughout his presidency, but had been denied it by a Democrat-controlled Congress...
...The amendment "had to pass...
...Ohio now sits on a surplus of more than $800 million, yet Voinovich wants to raise taxes again—on homes worth more than $200,000, on gasoline, even on soda pop...
...Charlie Stenholm (D-Tex...
...R ep...
...They have kept the three-fifths supermajority alive with their actions...
...0 The American Spectator April 1995 57...
...Shadegg has promised opponents of tax limitation, "We will be in your face, in your district—and if you don't vote for a supermajority requirement, after the November '96 election we'll be in your seat...
...proposed requiring more than 60 percent of the vote to authorize either the borrowing of money or the increase in taxes...
...Florida and Montana are preparing initiative petitions for 1996...
...After passing the amendment with a 300-132 vote, the House six days later voted 360-74 to pass the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, making it much more difficult for Congress to require states and local governments to spend without also providing them the cash to do so...
...Gene Watts are campaigning for a supermajority requirement to fight Voinovich's proposed tax hikes...
...Linda Smith (R-Wash...
...In Ohio, groups led by state Treasurer Ken Blackwell, state Rep...
...Taxpayer groups in more than a dozen states are working to enact similar amendments...
...It demonstrated to the Republican leadership—who originally tried to browbeat freshmen into supporting the Stenholm measure—that freshmen leaders could devise win-win strategies that avoid compromise and create the conditions for victory even when votes are not available in the short term...
...Rush Limbaugh, Lew Uhler, president of the National Tax Limitation Committee, Dan Mitchell of the Heritage Foundation, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Mario Lewis all campaigned against the denuded balanced-budget amendment...
...It's not politics as usual...
...Arizona and Washington passed supermajority legislation in 1992, and Nevadans voted 78-22 last November 8 in the first of two popular votes needed to amend that state's constitution...
...Shadegg, Gingrich, and a dozen conservative freshmen next met in the Speaker's office at 3:00 that afternoon...
...on January 26...
...A freshman from Arizona who replaced conservative stalwart Jon Kyl when Kyl moved to the Senate, Shadegg devised the strategy that gave House Republicans a crucial first win with the balanced-budget amendment, while strengthening the campaign for constitutional restraint of tax increases...
...An attempt to lower Prop 13's two-thirds rule to a simple majority for passing local general obligation bonds was defeated 70-30 last year...
...With both Simon and Stenholm—a tax-increase champion personally responsible for the passage of Bill Clinton's $241 billion tax hike in 1993—supporting the version without the Barton protection against 56 The American Spectator April 1995 higher taxes, many argued that the balanced-budget movement had become a bad idea...
...The amendment, long a goal of the party while in the minority, sharply divided Republicans when its specific language was to be drafted...
...Fifty-nine percent of the House voted for it, including 96 percent of all Republicans—all but eight (two conservatives and six pro-tax Republicans...
...countered with a different proposal that did not require the supermajority to approve a tax hike...
...The strong support liberal Sen...
...Immediately—the next morning—Gingrich, Armey, and Barton held a press conference with the freshmen to kick off the two-year campaign...
...Rush Limbaugh, whom the freshmen Republicans had made an honorary member of the 104th Congress, and who had repeatedly urged them not to compromise or bow to pressure from the older leadership, understood the import of what had happened...
...Joe Barton (R-Tex...
...California's Proposition 13 not only cut property taxes, but required a two-thirds vote for state tax hikes...
...But the two-thirds majority required to amend the Constitution did not materialize, and the Barton amendment failed...
...Ladies and gentlemen, the freshmen did indeed stand and then acted on principle because they have articulated, now defined the strategy of the party...
...The next day, the leadership would join Barton, Shadegg, and the freshmen to announce a two-year campaign to pass an amendment with the supermajority requirement...
...On February 6, the House then voted 294-134 to approve line-item veto legislation that would allow a president to veto individual spending programs without rejecting an entire bill—a measure particularly important for pruning pork-barrel spending...
...That evening, all but two Republicans voted in favor of the amendment, which passed 300-132...
...In the view of many conservative activists and congressmen, a balanced budget without the supermajority requirement was little more than an invitation to raise taxes...
...Paul Simon (Dill...
...At the conference, Gingrich said, "History demonstrates that in this town the institutional pressures and bias are uniformly for higher taxes rather than spending restraint and reduction...
...Only a supermajority requirement for tax increases of all kinds will begin to put taxpayers on a level playing field against the spending interests that always want more and more of the American taxpayer's paycheck...
...are forming a "Supermajority Caucus" to be composed of pro-taxpayer representatives from those states that already have a supermajority requirement for tax hikes...
...and Rep...
...It also stripped the armor from the forty Democrats who voted for Stenholm but against the Barton amendment...
...But many freshmen Republicans had committed themselves to fighting for a supermajority, and Rush Limbaugh strengthened their resolve by announcing repeatedly, for the ten days before the January 26 vote, that any amendment without an anti-tax provision would violate the spirit—though not the letter—of the contract...
...Should the opposition maintain its opposition and we fail to get the two-thirds required to pass a constitutional amendment out to the states, we will work from April 15 to November 5, 1996, Election Day, to replace pro-tax Members with pro-taxpayer Members...
...T he Shadegg strategy produced a number of positive results...
...These pro-taxers will now be forced to vote again on April 15, 1996, without the cover of a watered-down amendment...
...Gingrichpromised the first vote on this amendment would be on tax day, April 15, 1996: the second vote on April 15, 1997...
...Shadegg's maneuver also helped to put the Republican Party on the correct side of the supermajority issue...
...Our goal will be to pass this amendment on April 15 [1996...
...Newt and the leadership," Limbaugh declared on his radio program that day, "did not get tothe freshmen: the freshmen got to Mr...
...In the course of these fights, the new Republican majority has left no doubt that it is ushering in a new era in American politics...
...Shadegg hatched a plan: he told Gingrich that if the Barton amendment failed, House freshmen might be willing to vote for the stripped-down amendment if they could be assured that the fight for a super-majority constitutional amendment would be front and center in the Republican agenda for the next two years, including the 1996 presidential campaign...
...Mike Fox, and state Sen...
...It maintained momentum behind both the contract and the pressure for spending cuts...
...Committee members have long had a habit of larding money for pet projects into the hidden recesses of larger legislation...
...It was a strong show of support for the anti-tax position, doubly remarkable for the degree of Republican party unity...
...Grover G. Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform...
Vol. 28 • April 1995 • No. 4
