March 3, 2005

Wheel Tax Spin: Another Legislator Makes Stupid Claims

State Rep. Sherry Jones, D- Nashville, has emailed me to defend legislation pending in the state legislature that would make it easier for county commissions across Tennessee to increase wheel taxes, and end the right of citizens to try to overturn such tax increases via a petition drive and referendum. The extended entry of this post contains her email, verbatim, followed by my response.

The legislation you have written about does nothing more than allow local governments to decide the issue. Local government leaders are generally more accessible to you than state members as they are at the Capitol for the first 5-6 months. Having served as a local government member I can assure that this does NOT make it easier to pass a wheel tax and you should have a lot of input with your local elected person. Local legislation that is enabling is generally passed easily here in the General Assembly if the city or county wants it.

Sherry,

Thanks for your email. I will reproduce it verbatim on my website, followed by my response below.

1. Your legislation makes it possible for a county commission to pass a wheel tax by a simple-majority vote rather than a two-thirds majority vote. I'll leave it to my readers - and your constituents - to decide if you are right that this "does NOT make it easier" for a county commission to pass a wheel tax.

2. Your legislation removes the right currently in the law for citizens to use a petition drive and referendum to overturn a wheel-tax increase passed by their county commission. I'll leave it to my readers - and your constituents - to decide if that provides the citizens with "more input" or less.

I wonder what the people of Blount County would think of your argument. Last month, the Blount County Commisison voted 12-8 in favor of a wheel tax increase. That's a majority, but not two-thirds, so the tax did not pass. If your legislation had been law, the tax would have passed - and the people of Blount County would no longer have the right to try to roll back the tax increase via a petition drive and referendum.

In the last few months, residents of EIGHT Tennessee counties have overturned wheel tax increase via the petiton/referendum process that your HB 714 seeks to eliminate. If your legislation was already law, all of them would now be paying higher taxes.

Rep. Cochran tried to sell me the same spin you're trying, but then he read the legislation and realized it actually did make it easier for county commissions to pass wheel tax increases and actually did take away a right that the people of Tennessee now have. He then decided to represent the people rather than the higher-tax/higher-spending interests of the county commissions, executives and mayors, and withdrew his support for the bill.

Bill Hobbs

If her desire is to end the ability of the General Assembly to pass a bill on behalf of a single county commisison that raises the wheel tax in that county, that can be done very easily - and without eliminating the two-thirds-vote requirement or the petition-referendum process. If Rep. Jones wants to make it harder for wheel tax increases to pass, her legislation does the exact opposite.

You can find all of my past coverage of the wheel tax legislation here:
Wheel Tax Greaser Update 3 - March 2
Wheel Tax Greaser Update 2 - March 1
Wheel Tax Greaser Update - Feb. 28
Wheel Tax Spin - Feb. 25
Wheel Tax Legislation Gets a Flat - Feb. 25
Legislation Greases Wheels for Wheel-Tax Increases Across Tennessee - Feb. 24

So far, among all of Tennessee's major newspapers only the Knoxville News Sentinel has covered this story, which has been developing for the past week.