Jeffco School Protests: Context and Context

[politicat]

5. Last year's election had a strategic flaw: Amendment 66.

The fact is, Colorado needs to raise taxes to fund schools. We've done just about all we can with property tax and local sales and sin tax. We need more money in the districts, especially in the rural districts. The only fair, practical way to do that is with an income tax. (Better would be a wealth or corporate income tax, but that's not feasible yet, and the wealth tax may be un-constitutional.)

The problem is that even in 2013, people didn't yet feel secure enough to accept a bit more of an income tax, and we have just enough Tea types with Paulite tendencies and Glibertarians that they made noise. 66 was good law, but the anti-taxes turned out in force and it went down hard.

Of course, 66 made people pay attention to an odd year election. Which meant that the various AstroTurf orgs could spend a little money and get a significant degree of local control.

The 2013 turnout was about 25,000 higher than the 2011 school board. I think 66 planted a target, because that sort of turnout bump in an odd year is just not normal.