GALVIN TOSSES CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ON SCHOOL CHOICE
SHNS . . . TH . . . DECEMBER 7, 1998 . . . The Secretary of State's office today tossed
out a constitutional amendment allowing public dollars to be spent on private schools,
ruling that many voter signatures of support had been gathered on invalid petition forms.
After reviewing the 58,932 signatures
submitted by the Committee for Parental Choice last week, Secretary William Galvin
invalidated 3,507 signatures gathered on petition sheets that had been marked with
highlighters or underlining.
Galvin's decision dropped the CPC 1,832
signatures short of the 57,100 necessary to place the constitutional amendment before the
Legislature.
A CPC spokesman said his group would
likely challenge the ruling in either state or federal court.
Galvin's decision follows a June 1998
Supreme Judicial Court ruling that prohibited initiative petitioners from marking the
petition forms. In the ruling, the SJC said, "the petition must be an exact copy of
the official form, nothing less and nothing more."
In Hurst vs. O'Connor [the recent
referendum on electric utilities deregulation] a case involving highlighted address boxes
that had been added to signature petitions -- the SJC said the alterations could distract
petition signers.
Today, CPC chairman Cornelius Chapman
said the SJC's decision in the Hurst case was of "dubious" quality.
"At this point, we have not decided
whether we will be appealing this in state or federal court," said Chapman, a lawyer
who said he is working for free. "We feel that (Galvin's) decision frustrates the
will of 58,932 voters in Massachusetts."
Chapman said CPC would likely bring a
case to overturn Galvin and the SJC using the federal voting rights act. That law
prohibits public officials from invalidating votes or petition signatures for
"immaterial defects," Chapman said.
"The question isn't whether the
Secretary of State is correctly interpreting the SJC's ruling," he said. "The
question is whether the SJC can rule as it did, and be consistent with federal law."
In fact, Galvin and Attorney General
Scott Harshbarger had argued in the Hurst case thatminor extraneous markings would not
distract signers. The court overruled them.
On several CPC petition sheets thrown
out by Galvin today, only the town and the filing date were highlighted. Some signatures
were tossed because they were on poorly photocopied -- but generally readable -- sheets.
The CPC measure has already sparked a
lawsuit because the state Constitution specifically prohibits amendments that divert
public dollars to private schools. In September, a judge allowed CPC to gather signatures,
even though the effort is still technically barred.
The suit challenges that so-called
anti-aid amendment that critics say is rooted in century-old anti-Catholic bigotry. Today,
Chapman said the Catholic Church is not funding his efforts.
A spokeswoman for the Massachusetts
Teachers Association said the union would likely fight any appeal by CPC.
"As far as we're concerned, the
petition is D.O.A. unless Mr. Chapman and his group do something to revive it," said
MTA general counsel Ann Clarke. "We think that it's clear that the initiative
petition process cannot be used to amend the anti-aid amendment. It's clear as a bell that
over time any anti-religious flavor this had has been eliminated. This is a provision
that's aimed at protecting and preserving public education."
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, December 8, 1998
Lead Editorial:
A good argument for a state tax cut
A new report on the Massachusetts
economy calls attention to a loss of workers to other states because of our high cost of
living. The best immediate countermeasure is the long-stalled cut in the state's income
tax rate.
The worker exodus spotlighted by the
Teresa and H. John Heinz III Foundation and the Massachusetts Institute for a New
Commonwealth has slowed dramatically since the depths of the last recession, but still
ought to be a cause for worry that it continues in good times. More than 70,000 people
moved out in 1990-1991; in 1996-1997 the departures were only about 10 percent as many.
The inability to find enough workers is a real threat to our economy.
The biggest components of our high cost
of living are housing and taxes. Housing costs take a long time to do anything about. But
taxes can be changed by a vote of the Legislature. The income tax rate was raised from 5
percent to 5.95 percent in 1989 to help keep the state solvent; the Legislature has
resisted all proposals to lower it even though the increase was billed at the time as
"temporary."
The Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk
University estimates that reducing the rate to 5 percent would generate $560 million in
new spending by business on buildings, machinery and equipment and an additional payroll
of $3.9 billion for some 92,500 new jobs (the state has about 3 million jobs).
The institute estimates that about
69,000 jobs would be filled by residents not now in the labor force -- and about 23,500 by
people moving in from other states.
That's more than three times the recent
annual out-migration. For the sake of our prosperity, this tax reduction is one to pass as
soon as possible next year.