Stop using tax money to ‘educate’ voters

When Pasco County’s schools wanted the voters to pass a school tax in 2004, they didn’t pussyfoot around.

They put a school employee in charge of the campaign, on the public’s dime. They put campaign literature in the schools and refused to let opponents of the tax do the same. They won.

Last year, the cities of Pinellas County got into a big fight with the county over questions on the ballot. So both sides spent hundreds of thousands of tax dollars trying to sway the voters.

The cities even used their water bills to tell people how to vote. And when voters wrote the county for an absentee ballot, they got back a piece of county propaganda telling them to “Vote Yes.”

Pasco and Pinellas counties are not alone. Across Florida, city halls, county courthouses and school boards often spend tax dollars to “educate” voters on which way to vote.

In my book, that ought to be illegal. That is precisely the goal of Senate Bill 734, which has just been filed for the upcoming annual session of our Florida Legislature

Complete text linked below:

Source:
St. Petersberg Times