Comments on: Planners: Too soon for a rail referendum (UPDATE)

By: Karen Jeffries

Karen Jeffries — Wed, 02 May 2012 00:32:24 +0000

Nobody can arbitrarily create transit taxes without a public referendum. That’s just a political spin filtering down from candidates who run scare campaigns to get in office or to stay in office.
The media sock-puppets who lap up to these fearmongers are perpetrating the lie by trying to fool enough of the people enough of the time.
Madison’s new RTA board declared right off, to the dismay of the opportunistic hard-right party-line puppets, that any sort of sales tax for local transit will first require voter approval. It’s the law.
And those like Bruskewitz who used the RTA concept as a political football to grease their skids into winning/keeping public office never could answer why highways are never put to referendum.

By: Louis Rugani

Louis Rugani — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:10:18 +0000

Has anyone reading this ever been allowed to vote to approve or deny any highway / airport / harbor project in a referendum of the kind Ms. Eileen Bruskewitz wants to impose on this one transportation proposal she has singled out?

By: Scooter

Scooter — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 04:30:13 +0000

BigWheel:

Perhaps you could expand how asking the voters during a regularly scheduled election is cheating them? As you point out our County Supervisors are elected during the April election. Are you claiming that the majority who voted for the RTA where cheating the voters because they were elected in April and therefore not represeentative of the real voter demographic?

Bruskewitz should be lauded for pursuing the referendum even as Optiz says it’s a bad idea. I also note that this article has been updated since this afternoon to remove Steve Hiniker’s money quote – “I wouldn’t go in tomorrow or in spring saying we need a referendum.”

Really, who is cheating the voters?

By: BigWheel

BigWheel — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:05:35 +0000

Bruskewitz wants to short-circuit the process so that the rail question is posed in the lower-turnout (easlier to manipulate) April elections, instead of the November elections which typically draw a more representative voter demographic. The other benefit for the anti-rail folks is that an April vote will likely create long coattails for anti-RTA candidates running for county supervisor spots.

Either way, this is about gaming the system and cheating the voters out of democracy.