The Jefferson County School District is moving forward after its ballot questions, 3A and 3B, failed last week. Appropriately the district’s resulting emphasis is to place priority on quality in the classrooms for the next three years, with other fund-reliant improvements placed on the backburner.
Nonetheless, we imagine it won’t be too long before the district will present another funding request to voters, and in the meantime, we’d like to see a fix in the election process.
In this past election, a bogus pro statement in the TABOR Notice booklet caused great confusion. At our office, we received a few calls days before the election from people who had not seen the news stories that explained the off-center pro statement and these folks were rightly upset.
Arvada resident Tom Graham, self-described as a critic of local government, submitted the pro statement for the TABOR Notice booklet that in effect was a con statement due to misleading statements that took aim at seniors, suggested six-figure salaries for beginning teachers and “progress toward a Socialist utopia through education.” He said his action was prompted by what he saw as disingenuous language in many tax proposals, and inspired by Jonathan Swift, the Irish satirist best known for “Gulliver’s Travels” and “A Modest Proposal.”
The fact that the statement was in the TABOR Notice booklet was understandably disconcerting to many. Jefferson County Schools saw the problem coming, but Graham’s submission was protected by law and only constrained by a 500-word limit. The district was left on the defense and issued a statement calling Graham’s verbiage “mischievous and lacking in integrity.”
While it is understandable that providing venues for pro and con statements is the American way, we believe the booklet should be a place for earnest pro and con arguments. There are other outlets for Mr. Graham’s creativity.
We believe the TABOR Notice booklet should be more on a par with the “blue book,” formally known as the Analysis of the 2008 Ballot Proposals, compiled by the Legislative Council of the Colorado General Assembly. The blue book involves a number of drafts from the Legislative Council Staff, which writes the analysis for each measure on the statewide ballot. The staff is limited in size, but the process is open to everyone who wants to comment on the drafts and submit revisions. The process surely has its critics, but it ensures a reasonable standard in looking at two sides of each question.
We urge legislators to review the laws involving the TABOR Notice booklet and see if there is a better way to meet the intent of the booklet while preventing misleading submissions.
We cannot ascertain if the results for 3A and 3B would have been different without the distraction of Graham’s submission, but if it did, it is a shame because it means the state of education for the district and its students was unfairly impacted.