As loyal readers know, Red is fairly passionate about exercising the right to vote and strongly believes that democracy is the best of the many bad options for selecting leaders.  But then we come to the Texas Constitution, which for vague and somewhat mysterious reasons has to be amended every year to deal with matters that seem – well, somehow less than worthy of constitutional consideration.  To make matters worse, these matters are put to the public based on ballot language that is frequently misleading and certainly uninformative at best.  The ballot language is typically written in such an innocuous manner that voters would authorize a constitutional amendment legalizing the white slave trade.  Red was going to walk you through the mess that are the 7 constitutional amendments up for vote this year, but his good friend Joe Kulhavy at the Texas Election Law Blog has beat him to the punch and done a much better job of it than Red could have managed.  Only Joe could make reading about these matters at least somewhat entertaining, so all Red will do is give you his up or down.

• Prop. 1 – Throttles back property tax revenue for school districts by adding another $10,000 to the homestead exemption.
  • Red votes No.  Red would use the extra $200 or so to restock the liquor cabinet, but the schools need it more
• Prop. 2 – Exempts a handful of surviving spouses of disabled vets from homestead taxes
  • Red votes Yes.  No real harm here as this effects a handful of folks.
• Prop. 3 – Releases statewide elected officials from their historical requirement to reside in Austin, despite the fact that their jobs happen to be located in the capitol.
  • Red votes Yes.  Most of them don’t deserve to live in Austin anyway.
• Prop. 4 – Would authorize professional sports team charitable foundations to conduct charitable raffles.
  • Red votes No. This just authorizes another way for largely bogus charities to fleece us.
• Prop. 5 – Would adjust the population cap that prohibits all but the tiniest of counties from using county road crews to build and maintain private roads, so as to ensure that slightly-less tiny counties will be able to use county road crews to build and maintain private roads.
  • Red votes No. Red always thought a private road meant just that – it’s private.  Red can’t imagine a reason to expend  more public funds in this way.
• Prop. 6 – Would specify that Texans have a fundamental constitutional right to hunt, kill and harvest wildlife and fish, including by “traditional means.”
  • Red votes No.  Totally unnecessary and likely to only result in absurd litigation.
• Prop. 7 – Would redirect roughly 10% or more of the state’s annual tax revenue exclusively to transportation projects.
  • Red is torn up about this one.  Texas roads are falling apart, but the idea of requiring money to be spent on any particular area troubles him.  Red votes No.