Progressive Ponderings - Magna Carta

05/14/2005

Joe Mayer

Our Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty has a plan to move our state forward to the year 1215 A.D. That year is credited with the first stirrings of democracy, as an agreement between the King of England and the landing-owning gentry was drawn up. This Magna Carta stipulated that the King could not raise taxes on the gentry without the consent of these nobles.

Pawlenty’s proposal would allow 20% of the landed gentry in our state to demand a referendum if local government units – cities, townships, counties, and school districts – attempt to raise property tax rates. If this proposal is voted into law by our landed legislators it will at least partially nullify over two hundred years of voter-suffrage gains in our nation.

America began with property-owning requirements for voting. We gradually left this in favor of a poll tax to keep the lower classes from democratic participation. Only gradually were women accepted as voting equals. Minorities today are still discriminated against by hostile registration clerks and election judges.

Pawlenty advises returning to all these prejudices and limitations on our democratic process. Consider:

- Seniors- Many of these dedicated voters, after years of owning their homes and paying property taxes directly, have moved into more convenient senior living arrangements and have ended their property ownership.

- Young voters – Young people, who seldom own property before their education is completed or before marriage, who we urge to become involved, will have an ownership restriction telling them they still don’t qualify in all citizen’ decisions.

- Minorities – Usually, a higher percentage of these people are on the lower end of our economic scale and can’t afford to buy property. Even if they can purchase it, at times they are subject to “red-lining,” a process by which mortgage lenders discriminate through higher down payment demands, higher interest rates and more exorbitant closing costs.

- Poor of all races – These people can least afford ownership, and the requirement will act like a modern-day poll tax. Rent payments include within them the cost of taxes, but under this proposal the right to vote the property belongs to the landlord.

- Women – Frequently earning less than men, women are more likely to fall into the poverty group. Also, women still own less property than men, especially in the business and investment arenas.

- Landlords – Under Pawlenty’s bigoted plan, people who own homes would have one vote (married couples ½ vote each). Some landlords, though, own hundreds of properties and would receive a ballot for each. Goodbye Democracy.

- Absentee ownership – One of the principles of democracy is that those who are governed by law should be the ones that have a voice in establishing that law. Removing the vote from the individual and giving it to property allows those outside a particular governmental unit to have undue influence on education, parks, roads, etc. provided within that jurisdiction.

- Corporate ownership – The majority of commercial, industrial, and investment property is owned by corporate interests. There is no constitutional provision in the Minnesota or U.S. Constitution to allow corporate voting. Are we ready to grant one more corporate intrusion on our civic rights? Who would vote the corporate ballot – the CEO, Chairman of the Board, stockholders?

Governor “Fees” will do anything to keep his No Tax Pledge to a minority group – the Minnesota Taxpayers Association. Once again, this proposal seeks to nullify two centuries of voting gains by taking us back 800 years.

Aristocracy always seeks ways of raising its ravenous appetite, this time by a Governor who recently labeled his opposition “stupid.”