A right-wing advocacy group is calling OU President David Boren’s penny sales tax petition unconstitutional.
Boren and his group, Oklahoma’s Children – Our Future, filed the petition in late October, and want the one cent tax increase to fund various aspects of education in the state. But Dave Bond, the CEO for OCPA Impact, filed a formal protest with the State Supreme Court on Thursday, saying the petition violates the state’s constitutional single subject rule, and accused Boren’s group of logrolling four different subjects in to one petition.
“The concept of logrolling is frowned upon,” Bond said, “because it usually involves something that people like, and support, and think would be a good thing, and lumps it together with stuff they might not feel—on it’s own—as strongly in favor of.”
Bond said the OU President is promoting his penny sales tax petition as a way to fund teacher pay raises, but said there’s a lot more in the petition that people should be aware of.
According to Boren, his proposal would raise about $600 million per year for education. About 70 percent of the funds would support pay raises for teachers in Oklahoma. Another 19 percent would go to higher education to address the rising tuition costs. Additionally, 8 percent would go to the state Department of Education to award grants for low-income children, and the remaining 3 percent would be allocated to the CareerTech system.
Bond said he agrees that Oklahoma teachers need pay raises, but called Boren’s petition an “unconstitutional money grab.” He said the petition should be broken down in to four subjects, and voters should be able to decide on each one individually. The four subjects are: teacher pay raises, other funding for education beyond teacher raises, the fact that the proposal is to raise sales taxes, and that the state’s appropriations process would be altered.
Amber England, one of the leading members of Boren’s group, Oklahoma’s Children – Our Future, said she is confident their petition is filed correctly. She said all subjects in the petition fall under the category of education, and therefore it’s one subject.
The State Supreme Court can either take up this protest, or reject it. If it’s rejected, the Court still has to approve Boren’s petition. Once it is approved the group has 90 days to collect enough signatures to get it on the November 2016 ballot.
