I hear you crying out in the wilderness, Missouri voters. The words are faint because you’re deep in the forest, but what I’m hearing is: “Please, help me understand this long, crazy election ballot.”
Today and tomorrow, your supplications will be answered.
Since The Kansas City Star is not in a position to render much assistance (its editorial board having been effectively wiped out by a new publisher bent on taking the paper in a new editorial direction), JimmyCSays will help you cut through the ballot fog.
I voted absentee Wednesday at Center High School, and I can assure you the lines and wait times will be long at the polls next Tuesday. It took me 30 to 40 minutes to check in, wait in a line of six or seven people to get a ballot and then fill out the paper ballot by hand. (At Center, you do not have the option of voting absentee on one of the relatively few electronic machines the Kansas City Election Board has.)
…As an aside, Missouri and the Kansas City Election Board are incredibly backward when it comes to election systems. Missouri does not allow early voting because the Republicans who control the Legislature want to keep the vote down. And the KCEB clings tenaciously to the paper-ballot system, which makes voters feel like kindergartener experimenting with their first sets of crayons.
Anyway, the Kansas City, MO, ballot includes five state constitutional amendments; a statewide proposition; three Jackson County questions; three Kansas City questions; and, in parts of the city, a Mid-Continent Library proposition.
Today, let’s take a look at the five constitutional amendments and the statewide proposition. The biggest oddity on the ballot is dueling measures that would raise the cigarette tax — the lowest in the nation, at 17 cents a pack. We look at the dueling measures first.
Amendment 3 and Proposition A
:: Amendment 3 would add 60 cents to the cigarette tax, to be phased in over four years. The revenue would go toward child health and education programs.
The initial backers of this amendment were early childhood education advocates in St. Louis. Their intentions were, and are, good. The main problems: the tax hike is not large enough to deter people from smoking, and none of the revenue would go toward educating people about the hazards of smoking or smoking cessation programs. Here’s another wrinkle: R.J. Reynolds, seeing an opportunity to pre-empt a larger tax increase down the road, jumped in and decided to push hard for passage. So far, it has spent $12 million promoting the measure…That should tell you everything you need to know.
My recommendation: Vote NO on Amendment 3.
:: Fielding its own pawns and bishops in this smoking chess game, the convenience store industry countered with Proposition A, which would raise the cigarette tax by a measly 23 cents a pack and would allow marketers of discount cigarettes to keep their price advantage over the major brands. (One part of Amendment 3 would eliminate that advantage.) Revenue generated by Proposition A would go for roads and bridges.
Like I said, the convenience store industry is promoting the measure…That should tell you everything you need to know.
My recommendation: Vote NO on Proposition A.
Amendment 1
This is a proposed renewal of a one-tenth-of-a-cent sales tax that generates $90 million a year for soil and water conservation and to help cover operational costs at state parks and historic sites.
Voters first approved this sales tax in 1984. It’s been a big positive for Missouri.
My recommendation: Vote YES on Amendment 1.
Amendment 2
Since 2008, Missouri has had no limit on campaign contributions in state races. Amendment 2 would set a limit of $2,600 per election cycle — $2,600 in a primary and $2,600 in a general. It also would set a ceiling of $25,000 on donations to a political party. Credit for this proposal goes to Fred Sauer, a businessman from St. Louis, who says caps would help to rebuild trust in state government.
This is about as straightforward and basic as a proposal gets: Do you want to live in a state that limits campaign contributions or one where the special interests can spend as much as they like and are able?
My recommendation: Vote YES on Amendment 2.
Amendment 4
Like Amendment 3 and Proposition A, this is another crazy proposal. It would bar any new state or local taxes on services or transactions that are not currently subjected to sales taxes. Some of its chief backing comes from realtors, who are peering into the forest and envisioning real-estate-transaction fees behind every tree.
I don’t like sales taxes. It’s the most regressive tax there is, hitting hardest those with the lowest incomes. At the same time, it makes no sense to me to attempt to pre-empt every conceivable new sales tax. I prefer to vote on tax proposals one at a time, considering the merits of each.
My recommendation: Vote NO on Amendment 4.
Amendment 6
This looks suspiciously like Kris Kobach creep. The man who has made a name for himself by trying to limit Democratic voter turnout in Kansas must have inspired the backers of Amendment 6, which would require voters to show photo i.d. at the polls.
I’m a Democrat…Need I say more?
My recommendation: Vote NO on Amendment 6.
**
One final recommendation: Whatever jurisdiction you live in, go to your election board’s website and carefully review the “Sample Ballot,” which lays out exactly what you will see at the polls. You’ll be glad you took the time to familiarize yourself with the issues and ballot language.
Tomorrow: The three Jackson County questions; the three Kansas City, MO, questions; and Proposition L, which would benefit the Mid-Continent Library.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Thanks Jimmy “Olsen” Fitzpatrick! This ballot / voting info will be useful, given the demise of our once-esteemed, local Fourth Estate. Isn’t great that we have the internet and folks like you and Barb Shelly … I take it you are disabled or out of town on voting day ;=) ?
Yeah, word on Main Street is that Fitz –and his recuperating knee–will be working at a casino that day, trying to rebuild his 401K before Hillary Clinton can start taxing everything that moves, and giving it away to Foundation donors. So Fitz figured out how to vote early.
It’s the combo cripple/substitute teacher in Joco for a day exemption!
As for the sample ballot–don’t we all miss the late and I mean seriously great Dutch Newman, and all the other political clubs? (Her funeral this summer at Visitation rivaled the selection of a new Pope.)
Back in 1979, I was the first woman to manage a city mayoral race campaign–for Joel Pelofsky. “Decisive Democrat. Family man. A leader.” (We beat Wheeler but not Berkley or Watkins). It was an honor to work a poll for free. So there I was, out in the freezing cold, in the dark, 25 feet from the elementary school’s front door, handing out sample ballots at 6am.
Life was so easy then. We didn’t have email, we didn’t have printers in every home. It was the great tradition of political clubs to do the vetting, and make their recommendations, and pay a union to print out a sample ballot. It was a revered public service, dating back to the Pendergast tradition of “We don’t tell you HOW to vote; we just say, these people are your friends.”
Missouri voters REACHED for the samples, grateful for the research and reminders.
Then I moved to Johnson County in 1992. And whoa baby, a totally different midset there. Voters HATED sample ballots! I think the rule was 200 feet from the polls–further than a Hail Mary pass in football. Which was ridiculous. Voters parked closer to the door than the ballot passers. But it immediately became apparent that it was pointless to pass sample ballots because the Joco voter hates the “inference” that their vote can be swayed or that they need any advice or research on how to vote.
On the off chance a voter walked past me and my sample ballots in Shawnee, they muttered curse words and stuffed their hands in their pockets, and in fact, phoned the Election Board to protest any ballot passers, falsely claiming we were standing five feet within the no-fly zone. They acted like information and advocacy was evil.
And that “no ballot” behavior is perhaps one synecdoche explaining why Kansas is a red state. And who knows, this year, Missouri may be one as well.
Anyway, I’m happy to read yours, Fitz. Agree or not, thanks for doing the gumshoe leg work–with your gimpy knee.
Thanks, Donovan And Tracy. (Congratulations, Donovan, on spelling “JimmyO’s” last name correctly. I’ve messed that up before.
As to why I voted “absentee,” I plead the Fifth…But I assure you I’m not disabled! The knee is fine.
…Good contrast, Tracy, between voters in Jackson and Johnson counties. I suspect Jackson County voters don’t object too much to the passing of sample ballots because it’s always been that way. I’m seeing less of it, though, in recent years.
“Synedoche?” Great word. You drove me to the online Free Dictionary. Here’s the definition:
A figure of speech in which the name of a part is used to stand for the whole (as hand for sailor), the whole for a part (as the law for police officer), the specific for the general (as cutthroat for assassin), the general for the specific (as thief for pickpocket), or the material for the thing made from it (as steel for sword).
(I’m still working on the pronunciation!)
Fitz, it’s synecdoche.
You left out the first c.
Sin ECK du kee.
Rhymes with Schenectady, NY
So that way you will never forget it.
Another quick way to think of it, for you former Catholics who now use computers, is it is an ICON. That represents something larger.
Keep in mind that you can also save time by texting your vote for Hillary to 59925 and avoid the long lines completely.
(Don’t listen to him, voters; it’s just another dastardly Republican trick to suppress turnout! You can text someone and ask them to go to lunch, but you cannot — repeat cannot — text your vote to your election board!)
You don’t have to eat around the bush to ask me to lunch. Get hold of Karash and pick your poison.
Oh my gosh, you’re beating that old, tired Kris Kobach drum, too? Oh, that’s right — you’re a Democrat.
No candidate recs?
(You can Google “pronounce synecdoche.”)
— Candidates: Kander, Koster (reluctantly) and Hensley.
— We Democrats never tire of drumming Kris.
— Ah, si-NEC-da-kee!!
As for the issues, voting against BOTH cigarette taxes seems silly to me. Go for the death tax you can pass NOW. Yes it needs to be much higher (like the gasoline tax in Mo.) But Fitz, you know how hard it is to fight giant corporations. If the state WAITS to come back with a $1.50 or so tax, just imagine how the tobacco companies and gas stations and discount smoke shops will fight for their life fighting that!
Pick your poison, so to speak, and vote for SOMETHING!
How dare you use my words against me!
Tracy — I’ll let my spelling error on “synecdoche” stand, so your correction will make sense. (You know I always strive to make you happy so you won’t skewer me as much.)
…But really, do you need to keep needling us former Catholics? Don’t you understand how heavy the cross of guilt already is?
Fitz, here’s what to ask Patti for for Christmas. It’s a stuffed toy available at FAO Schwartz and ToysRUs:
Gladlee, the Cross-eyed Bear.
It’s my understanding that folks can vote for Trump by calling 867-5309.
Thanks, Julius…Slightly off subject, but when dialing for dates, I always go with Beechwood 4-5789. (“You can call me for a date any old time.”)
Thanks for the tip, Jim. I’ll call her the next time I need to pour out my soul about newspaper delivery problems.