HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

H.R. NO.

233

TWENTY-SIXTH LEGISLATURE, 2011

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 

 

 

 

 


HOUSE RESOLUTION

 

 

supporting the concept of requiring that all legislation proposing to increase the rate of any tax collected by the State or to enact a new tax be passed by a two-thirds supermajority vote.

 

 

 


     WHEREAS, control of the purse strings is a crucial element in a democratic government that governs by the consent of the governed; and

 

     WHEREAS, in a democratic republic, it is the people who are the ultimate authority in determining the expenditures of their government and the extent to which they themselves shall be taxed; and

 

     WHEREAS, responsible stewardship of the people's resources requires that the people's elected representatives be disinclined to increase the people's tax burdens without a fuller consideration and justification; and

 

     WHEREAS, the power of the purse is one of the most important powers of legislatures, and this ability to extract and redistribute the resources of the people is a responsibility that should be held to a higher standard; and

 

     WHEREAS, the permanent nature of taxation merits a heightened standard from the Legislature and a supermajority requirement is needed to give more voice to the taxpayers who will be taxed; and

 

     WHEREAS, our nation's founding fathers recognized that a simple majority is not meaningful enough to enact certain policies and some issues require the expression of the will of the supermajority of the people; and

 

     WHEREAS, the supermajority concept was endorsed by James Madison, the author of the Bill of Rights; and

 

     WHEREAS, even a founding father like Alexander Hamilton, in his writings in the Federalist Papers, concluded that a supermajority requirement had its place in a democracy, writing as he did in The Federalist No. 73 that the supermajority requirement "establishes a salutary check upon the legislative body, calculated to guard the community against the effects of faction, precipitancy, or of any impulse unfriendly to the public good, which may happen to influence a majority of that body[;]" and

 

     WHEREAS, taxation has far-reaching effects on almost every entity in society, and yet can be subjected to the specialized interests of a limited number of members in society; and

 

     WHEREAS, polls attest to the fact that the public is convinced that special interest lobbying dominates the public policy agenda within the government, and it is the public's concern that the specialized interests of these limited numbers of members in society are using their influence with legislatures to enact policies that tax these specialized interests more lightly than the rest of the electorate, who then must pay more to compensate for the exemptions enjoyed by these specialized interests; and

 

     WHEREAS, currently, sixteen states require a supermajority vote of their legislature to raise taxes; and

 

     WHEREAS, in February 2011, the legislature of Wisconsin passed legislation requiring a supermajority vote to increase taxes; and

 

     WHEREAS, the Legislature's tendency to increase the people's tax burdens in the interim periods when representatives are not confronted by upcoming elections can be ameliorated by the supermajority requirement; now, therefore,

 

     BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Twenty-sixth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2011, that the Legislature supports the concept of requiring that all legislation proposing to increase the rate of any tax collected by the State or to enact a new tax be passed by a two-thirds supermajority vote; and

 

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Resolution be transmitted to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the President of the Senate, and the Governor.

 

 

 

 

OFFERED BY:

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Report Title: 

Increasing or Creating Taxes; Supermajority Vote Requirement