Last week, a majority of the Mississippi Legislature – 94 representatives and senators – turned their backs on nearly 200,000 petition signers, who want their schools funded and their children educated.
How did they do that?
Simple, they did something they haven’t done against all the other initiatives that have come to the Legislature since the law was passed more than 20 years ago: They passed a dubiously worded “alternative” to go on the ballot with the original Initiative 42, which those 200,000 Mississippians signed on to. The alternative likely will produce a voting procedure so mixed up that even the men at the House and Senate podiums got confused when asked to explain it.
Oh, they said the friends of Initiative 42 “insulted” the intelligence of their voters by insisting the two competing issues would be so confusing that both would fail.
They said most people who signed onto Initiative 42 didn’t know what they were signing anyway.
So, what did they sign onto? Initiative 42 changes our constitution to require our lawmakers to fully fund the state’s promised share of educating our K-12 children.
Initiative 42 is three sentences with a title:
Section 201: Educational opportunity for public school children
To protect each child’s fundamental right to educational opportunity, the State shall provide for the establishment, maintenance and support of an adequate and efficient system of free public schools. The chancery courts of this State shall have the power to enforce this section with appropriate injunctive relief.
Nobody questions the opening part of Sentence No. 1. Of course, our children have a fundamental right to educational opportunities. But the rest of the sentence kind of shakes them up – that we make it the state’s responsibility to provide that “adequate and efficient system” of free public schools. They say using the “state” instead of the “Legislature” takes away their power.
Power, now that’s what this is about. Isn’t it? The power of a few versus the power of the many.
Initiative 42 could never take away the Legislature’s power to appropriate tax revenue. It’s in the constitution. That’s what one of the Legislature’s basic responsibilities. When Initiative 42 passes, you can be sure the Legislature will be required the pay the state’s full share of K-12 funding, which it’s managed to avoid 16 out of the past 18 years since it passed the Mississippi Adequate Education Program for K-12 schools.
But goodness, these know-all legislators who supported the trick alternative say, what’s this wording about a chancery court enforcing the law? They say, why would we need something like that to be stated plainly in the constitution? Apparently, it’s needed because the Legislature has somehow evaded paying the bill they promised 18 years ago. Do you and I get to evade any laws when we feel like it?
And so, we look forward to the debate about Initiative 42 and in explaining how the Legislature managed to muck up the ballot for you in November with a phony alternative. They want it such a mess that it will take you more trouble than you’d like to figure it out.
Don’t worry, the 200,000 people who signed those petitions, their friends and families – well, everybody in the state of Mississippi – will have plenty of opportunities to learn how they can take back their power, overcome this dirty ballot trick and make their strong marks for the future of our state.
And don’t be fooled by the confusing excuses you will hear from legislators who voted to put that dirty trick on the November ballot.
Without adequately educated children, there is no future.
Without adequately funded schools, we cannot educate our children.
We look forward to the fight because we know you care about our future, too.
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Patsy R. Brumfield of Jackson is a longtime Mississippi journalist working as communications director for Better Schools, Better Jobs, the organization focused on passage of a constitutional amendment for K-12 funding. For more information about Initiative 42, go to www.betterms.org or call its headquarters in Jackson at (769) 524-6818.