Overview of the Constitutional amendments

The Chron gives an overview of the Constitutional amendments on this year’s ballot.

College students, veterans’ widows and land owners who conserve water could be among the beneficiaries if voters approve 10 proposed amendments to the Texas Constitution on Nov. 8.

Proposition 1 would allow the surviving spouses of 100 percent disabled veterans to continue claiming an exemption from state property tax after the veteran dies.

Other proposals would allow the issuance of bonds to help pay for public projects, including a low-interest loan program to finance water conservation, sewage and flood control projects. That amendment, on the ballot as Proposition 2, would increase the revolving limit on outstanding bond debt to $6 billion.

Supporters, including several from the oil and gas industry and The Nature Conservancy, say the increased bonding authority is necessary to update water utilities and to pay for unfunded projects that are part of the state water plan. Critics say Proposition 2, and others like it, will add to “runaway spending.”

Sometimes the best you can do with these things is see how they are analyzed and supported or opposed by groups of various alignments. BOR did a good analysis of them along those lines, doing the first five here and the latter five here, with some extra information about Prop 6 here and their staff endorsements here. Another analysis comes from Progress Texas, which recommended a Yes on all ten. The Chron has only offered endorsements on two of them, Prop 8 and Prop 2. I don’t expect any more at this point. Any propositions you care about one way or the other?

UPDATE: David Crossley expresses concerns about Prop 4.

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One Response to Overview of the Constitutional amendments

  1. It’s amazing that these “progressives” support proposition 4, giving county commissioners the power to decide farmland is “unproductive” and needs to be converted to sprawl. County officials work tirelessly to decimate our towns and cities and move growth to the unincorporated areas. They already have control of the Metropolitan Planning Organizations to fund the roads and highways they need to enable development of greenspace outside towns and cities. Why do they need new funding mechanisms to pursue this totally unsustainable system?

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