As has been the case in other citizen referendums on tax increases, critics are complaining again that taxpayer dollars are being used to lobby in favor of a tax hike.
This time it's those opposed to a June 8 vote in Salt Lake County that would impose a one-tenth of 1 percent sales tax increase for arts and zoos in the county.As reported by Deseret News writer Joe Costanzo last week, the University of Utah is allowing those in favor of the new tax to use university telephones after hours to call citizens to lobby for the tax and turn out the vote in two weeks.
Apparently, this is legal. Even the local lawyer, Robert Breeze, who has organized a group opposing the tax hike - the Committee Against Tax Subsidies For The Rich - agrees with that although Breeze says such actions are unfair.
And they're not very bright, either.
Conservative Utah lawmakers were so concerned about the Utah Transit Authority spending money on a mass transit vote in 1992 that they included in the enabling legislation a prohibition against the use of taxpayer funds (the UTA gets a sales tax subsidy in the counties in which it operates) in lobbying for the mass transit vote.
In 1998, tax protesters who were trying to roll back the largest tax increase in the state's history were incensed that information against their initiatives was being passed out by some teachers in some school districts. The children were bringing the material home to their parents. School district officials said they'd put a stop to it.
Now the University of Utah, a state institution, is allowing its telephones to be used by those supporting one side of a citizen referendum issue.
It isn't the issue itself that is at question here. It is the principle of state officials clearly taking sides in a public referendum and allowing the use of state facilities in that effort.
Certainly, U. officials have a right to take a stand. You wouldn't expect them to remain quiet if there was a vote on raising taxes for professors' pay or a bond election to earthquake-proof 100-year-old university buildings. It would be important to know if people running those institutions favored or opposed such referendums.
But using state property - even after hours and at little or no cost - is a different matter.
Very often, citizen referendums are sought by society's elite. It is difficult enough taking a stand against expanding the Salt Palace, funding the arts and zoos or cutting taxes used to pay for human services and education without having to push against the weight of government, too.
In a free society, all ideas should be discussed openly. But taxpayer funds should not be used to influence those ideas. Let them stand on their own.
University of Utah officials had better be careful.
The 1992 elections brought a new crop of conservatives to the Utah Legislature.
Remember the case of the Utah Transit Authority vote. After this incident in Salt Lake County, lawmakers may start including - as common language - a specific prohibition against any taxpayer-funded facilities or money being used in any way in future citizen referendum votes.
State and local officials who continue such practices may find that they've won a battle - the specific vote - but lost the war.