MISSOURI WATCH: NO ONE SAID CITIZENSHIP IS EASY

When the state's voters go to the polls November 3 they will face almost as many constitutional questions as candidate choices, which means the state is likely to get mixed results from proposals that are labeled "Helpful to Missouri."

Perhaps a more accurate label would be: "Caution: This amendment, if enacted, may not be what you really want."

The most disturbing observations about the general election ballot are how little discussion issues have received, how few public officials have explained these proposals and the almost spooky silence surrounding the entire policy balloting process. It's almost as if our state leaders don't want to acknowledge that among the eight amendments there are some important issues that will directly affect and indirectly impact the lives of all of the state's 5.4 million citizens.

Two of the several policy proposals are related to gambling. The most highly publicized of these is Constitutional Amendment No. 9, which was placed on the ballot through initiative petitions distributed by gaming companies operating in the state. It's better known as the boats-in-a-moat correction plan.

This may be the first instance in a long time in which an industry, by its own initiative, is sponsoring and promoting its own reform. And herein lies one of the issue's principal objections, since gaming interests wrote the amendment to cover not only their own unconstitutional actions but actually established the industry's future regulatory rules.

In an industry that is closely supervised and policed around the country, the opportunity of setting future policies is virtually unheard of, but this is what the amendment does. It states: "Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to permit... lotteries, gift enterprises and games of chance to be conducted on excursion gambling boats and floating facilities and to provide that any license issued before or after the adoption of this amendment...shall be deemed authorized by the General Assembly..."

The key word in this amendment is "after," which means that, if enacted, the state will have adopted a law that corrects not only the present illegal locations of moated boats but will permit new ones as well. State officials won't have any say about the next petitioning casino. In the interim, Missourians have made no legal decision whether they actually want more of these operations in man-made backwater ponds. It was nice of the casino operators to make this decision for the rest of us, but, thanks, no thanks. The voters should make their own decisions, since this is their state, not the casinos'.

The other side of this coin is that both the General Assembly and the citizens who make up the State Gaming Commission each gave approval to the boats-in-moats operations, which the Missouri Supreme Court later ruled was contrary to the original constitutional franchise. Missourians are still trying to understand why neither of these two public bodies would not have refused to grant approval until after the moat proposal had been ruled constitutional by the one remaining authority that could veto its provisions.

At best, this was poor judgment on the part of two public entities.

Casino firms, with approvals in hand from two branches of government, proceeded with boats-in-moats and invested millions of dollars in these facilities. Voters who believe in the concept of fairness, even for companies that separate widows from their pensions and marginal workers from their paychecks, will recognize the validity of the gaming companies' claims that they are the victims in this instance.

So there rests one of the voters' conundrums cited above. For they must decide, on the one hand, whether an industry that necessitates strict rules and regulation should be permitted to set future public policies, and on the other hand, whether an industry that has been encouraged to invest millions of dollars should be penalized for an illegality not of its own making.

Missouri needs, at the least, a majority of citizens with the wisdom of Solomon and the regulatory skills of Moses.

Still another constitutional proposal requiring both understanding and vision from voters is Amendment No. 2, which has received little attention from anyone, including school officials throughout the state who initiated the proposed changes in the 1997 General Assembly. This amendment would permit local school boards to set regular operating levies up to $2.75 without a vote of the public, up from the current $1.25 level. It also would permit levy increases up to $6.00 with a simple majority vote, up from the current $3.75 level, and moves the levy requiring a two-thirds voter approval to anything over $6.00, up from the current $3.75 level.

Unfortunately, this amendment serves to entrench the long-outdated principle that much of the local funding raised for public schools should come from property taxes and not from a more modern mix of tax revenues now collected, including sales and use taxes and both individual and corporate income taxes.

The amendment should lighten the challenge facing local school districts where voter approval for needed educational improvements is difficult and sometimes impossible to secure. It also makes it easier for local school officials to increase operating revenues without having to explain why they are needed. In other words, the amendment, while helpful in some areas, can prove to be unnecessary in others. A more suitable procedure would have required flexible margins based on other factors, including prior voting outcomes.

No one ever said being an informed citizen was easy, a confirmation certainly to be found in the constitutional questions Missourians will have to decide a few days from now.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.