Measure 2 is not like the first and last questions North Dakotans will vote on this June.  Imagine a world without property taxes…  it’s a minor sort of utopian vision.

From the perspective of those with fixed incomes or uncertain crop yields, property taxes are morally questionable; how can you tax someone when you don’t actually know they’re good for it? Certainly nobody should be putting up the family home or farm for auction or mortgage just to pay taxes.

From an urban planning standpoint, wild variation in property taxes inspires urban flight.  We’ve got a situation in Cass County now where there’s a dozen different “cities” that are just subdivisions that don’t want to pay Fargo taxes. But Fargo still pays the lion’s share for the emergency services and infrastructure the region depends on to support a cushy ring of suburbs. That’s not fair, either.

Property taxes cause enough trouble, if all this measure said was “Property taxes are prohibited”, I’d seriously consider voting for it.  But saying such a thing requires a lot of cleaning up afterward and Measure 2 meddles with that part of the equation too.

If the legislature started from a clean slate, and everyone was banging at the door for a solution, the simplest way to clean up the mess would be a bill giving expanded local taxation powers: sales, income, that sort of thing. Local governments would still tax and budget as they always have. Instead, Measure 2 assumes that the legislature is going to handle the budget for the entire state forever, and sets present revenues in stone, something that almost certainly will cause entire cities to break down within ten years. It’s specifically designed for minimum flexibility and responsiveness, so that the our civic institutions choke from the bottom up.

And as upsetting and often unfair as they may be for the average person, property taxes are quite fair and useful for a few key problems:  You shouldn’t be able to build a million-dollar mansion and never pay a dime on it.  You shouldn’t be able to buy up thousands of hectares and just leave them be.  Already, rampant speculation in the west has made it impossible for regular people to afford to live out there.  If the marginal cost of land ownership is zero, the situation is only going to get worse

A vote for Measure 2 is a vote for an overworked, overpowered legislature, funding 2031 needs with 2011 budgets, whilst foreigners buy and hold every scrap of land they can.  I’m voting NO.

You can read up on this June’s ballot measures, as they will be presented to the people, at the Secretary of State’s website.

Measures 1 and 4 aren’t on the ballot because of some utopian social experiment like the other measures.  They’re there because our Legislature simply could not come to the obvious, morally forthright conclusion.

A vote for Measure 1 is a vote for corruption, plain and simple. I’m voting NO.  There is not such a dire shortage of skilled people in this state that we must raid the legislature for qualified state officials.  The motives for in-term appointments only go downhill from there.  That the legislature itself put it on the ballot, hoping that the people of North Dakota would give them lease to behave inappropriately, speaks volumes on the quality of our present leadership.

Measure 4 is almost not even worth voting on, considering that each side is already drawing guns to fight over the same issue again in November.  But for what it’s worth, I’m voting YES.

Measure 4 is the result of grandstanding by the ruling party on an issue that has already been decided by the courts, a cheap way of rallying traditionalist support and promoting a North Dakota vs. THEM mentality.  The issue, which was already decided, was suddenly un-decided by state law, jeopardizing the actual performance of the sports team they were supposedly “protecting.”  There was always a right thing to do:  Just leave it alone.  But they didn’t, they played it for votes.

With respect to the June ballot, I hope the Secretary of State is correct in telling us that “YES” means “NO”.  Given that the issue has always been discussed as the logo, rather than not the logo, I wouldn’t be surprised if the ballot returns show some razor-thin margin where confused voters cancel each other out.

You can read up on this June’s ballot measures, as they will be presented to the people, at the Secretary of State’s website.

Measure 2 was trashed in a Forum-Corp poll this month, and the news got broken today:  70-80% are against Measure 2, which if passed would hand the power of the purse for every hamlet, metropolis, and school over to the non-professional state legislature.

That The Forum cheerfully reports on the failure of the measure to inspire North Dakotans is indicative of the widening schism in the state GOP, between the radical ecophagic anarchocapitalists and the traditionalist powerhogs.

But you know, The Forum clearly did polls on both Measures 2 and 4, plus the state races, and there’s only one of those stories running today… Hmmmmmmm.

I’ve been reading dogWAGGER recently, and I like the cut of its jib.  In the face of un-news from North Dakota’s tepid print and substance-free broadcasters, it’s refreshing to see some good old-fashioned muckraking.  Check out their takedown of the Dickinson cabal.

There’s been a mounting tempest as the state authorities green-lit oil drilling in Little Missouri State Park, and rightly so. Now, even Tom Dennis at the Grand Forks Herald is saying it’s kind of a bad idea.

Don’t you think it’s time for the “Governor” to do something about it?

As seen on HuffPo.

The mud is ready to fly on Senator Heitkamp’s behalf now, following a couple weeks of oddball attacks centred around North Dakota’s most effective blogger. The gloves are off; this fall is going to be ugly.

A grain elevator in McLean County went under the other week, and farmers are left holding the bag.

There’s a bit of back-and-forth between the PSC and the Ag Department, but no mention of activity from the state auditor or prosecutors in what I can only imagine is a serious case of fraud.

Further, Doug Goehring is so bold as to suggest that grain contracts are more worthy of repayment than chemical contracts. I’m no lawyer, but that doesn’t sound like standard bankruptcy procedure to me. Sure sounds like they’ve already given up any hope of recovering pilfered assets, too. Your highly-effective Republican-led state government!