Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Margaret Marshall signaled the likely outcome of the Republican Party's attempt to thwart the setting of the special election to replace former Sen. Cheryl Jacques on the same date as the presidential primary when she asked from the bench on Tuesday, "It may be unfair, but is it unconstitutional?"
A Boston Herald editorial
Friday, January 9, 2004
Constitutional and unfair
Other groups which want to amend the constitution in the future will find that their petitions can also be ignored. The legislative leadership set out to destroy the initiative amendment process and, with the SJC ruling, may have succeeded.
Taxachusetts
[Then the membership newsletter of
Citizens for Limited Taxation]
January, 1983
CLT has filed a bill to limit user fees to the cost of the service provided.
Taxachusetts
[Then the membership newsletter of
Citizens for Limited Taxation]
January, 1983
"There is no new thing under the sun."
(Ecclesiastes 1:9-14)
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
After my Thursday Update, "'After such vacancies
shall happen,'" Barbara dug into the CLT archives
filing cabinets and came up with a copy of the old CLT newsletter, Taxachusetts,
from exactly 21 years ago to the month. What were we discussing back then? The
beginning of the end of the people's right to amend the state
constitution thanks to a rogue high court's decision, the beginning of
the end ... and the
definition of fees.
Yesterday I was the guest speaker for Chip Faulkner's Friday Morning Group. The FMG is a meeting he's organized and has been hosting for some years now on the
second Friday of each month. Those participants in the monthly roundtable are representatives of other broadly like-minded statewide organizations, activists from across the state (who can take the time off), and representatives from the Republican State Committee, the
Legislature, and sometimes the executive branch.
I was invited to give a presentation on the recent
use of illegal fees to raise general revenue, and what we can do about
it. While I spoke of the historical context and current situation,
my friend and CLT member Karen MacNutt, an attorney and once-candidate
for state Attorney General, ably backed me up with legal considerations
and details.
"There is no new thing under the sun."
This is why Thomas Jefferson warned that
"eternal vigilance is the price of freedom."
"Temporary" in the government mindset
applies only to when private citizens win. Usually within a decade,
less than two, the same battle must be fought all over again from
scratch. That is our present situation with illegal fees.
CLT tried to codify into law the definition of fees
as far back as 1983.
A year later, in 1984, in its precedent-setting
high-court decision, Emerson
College vs. the City of Boston, the state Supreme Judicial Court
defined it once and for all ... we'd hoped, but were wrong.
Ford
vs. Lashman in 1989, our court challenge of the Dukakis
administration's fee increases and creations, concluded with an
out-of-court settlement, a promised reevaluation and reduction of fees
by the
incoming Weld administration. (Remember the Registry of Motor Vehicles
fees then were then reduced?) It too didn't very last long and here we are again,
back at Square One squared.
I prepared a
packet of information [Adobe Acrobat Reader format] that was passed out at yesterday's FMG meeting
for my discussion.
You're invited to look it over. Soon we will be asking you and all CLT
members if you want to again challenge the definition of fees. We
hope to set further precedent by going after the most obviously egregious of them,
ie., the firearms
fees, the self-payer nursing home fees, and perhaps a couple or three
others. We must remind those who purport to "represent" us, and
reassert our own recognition of the Constitution and our
prerogatives as enlightened citizens. The clock has
run down on our last victory, again. Unfortunately we must now, and
again, reassert ourselves.
Politicians today don't have the stomach to vote for
broad-based tax increases like the income, sales or gas tax. They hope
to continue nickling-and-diming us to death with a multitude of
"fee" increases. Since last year alone, state revenue just from
"fees" is projected to fatten state coffers by a
half-billion dollars. You've seen the trickle-down effect: trash-pickup, school activities,
et. al. Municipal fees, the little brothers of state fees, fall in line behind them in lockstep.
"Fees" are the name of the new revenue game.
If somebody doesn't again remind government, with the
proverbial two-by-four against a stubborn mule -- from the governor on
down -- that the definition of a constitutionally-legitimate fee
is no more than the cost of providing a specific service that is voluntarily
sought, then we might as well change the name of our organization to
Citizens for Limited ... Fees, and get on with our apparently-new
mission of battling fees and fee increases until the term "tax
increase" ever again becomes politically palatable.
Watch for your poll next month in the 2004 CLT annual
membership mailing. Taking on the state through the courts is very
expensive: we will need your additional support to go
forward. I expect we'll get some support from other
organizations, but without yours and CLT's leadership I doubt
very much that anybody else is going to launch this next
and unfortunately-necessary fees challenge in 2004 -- that'll indemnify
all of us
for another decade or so, when we'll probably have to fight it again.
"Eternal vigilance is the price of
liberty." But unfortunately it isn't the only cost.
|
|
|
Chip
Ford |
The Boston Herald
Friday, January 9, 2004
A Boston Herald editorial
Constitutional and unfair
Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Margaret Marshall signaled the likely outcome of the Republican Party's attempt to thwart the setting of the special election to replace former Sen. Cheryl Jacques on the same date as the presidential primary when she asked from the bench on Tuesday, "It may be unfair, but is it unconstitutional?"
Within 24 hours, the SJC unanimously ruled it was not, affirming the Senate was fully within its rights to set the special election date before Jacques' seat was actually vacant, allowing it to fall on a date which advantaged the Democratic candidate.
Republican Party Chairman Darrell Crate had it just right when he said in response, "Legal play is not the same as fair play."
No, it surely isn't, a fact that continues to elude Senate President Robert Travaglini. He disingenuously insists, "The real winners in today's court decision are the people of this district."
So long as the "people" are registered as Democrats, or fall within the ranks of the unenrolled who will vote in the contested Democratic presidential primary. Travaglini's tricks ought to be "Exhibit A" in Gov. Mitt Romney's case for a more balanced Legislature.
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Taxachusetts
[Then the membership newsletter of Citizens for Limited Taxation]
January, 1983
Very Bad News
Remember H. 6252, the total tax limitation amendment which CLT, High Tech, and AIM collected
60,000 signatures in 1980? On January 14, 1983, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled: "We think the
General Court's [Legislature's] 1980 agreement by considerably more than three-fourths of its
members to refer the [Taxation Committee Chairman Gerry] Cohen Amendment to the next joint
session was an expression of its disapproval of H. 6252 as originally submitted. Not having receivedapproval of one-fourth of the 1980
Constitutional Convention as required by Article 48, the initiative H. 6252 became a nullity for the purposes of the next Constitutional Convention."
And Article 48 becomes a nullity for the purposes of constitutional amendments. As we have warned all
along, the refusal of the Legislature to vote on the original CLT-MHTC-AIM tax limitation amendment
was the beginning of the end of the voters' right to amend the constitution. Having successfully ignored
our petition in 1980, the Legislature avoided a final vote on another initiative petition during the
1982 session. This petition, also signed by over 60,000 voters, was created by a coalition for state budget
reform.
Other groups which want to amend the constitution in the future will find that their petitions can also
be ignored. The legislative leadership set out to destroy the initiative amendment process and, with the
SJC ruling, may have succeeded.
Other Legislative Action
CLT has filed a bill to limit user fees to the cost of the service provided.
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