Let the people decide?

Rich Eggleston complains that the fate of the constitutional amendment supporters call the Taxpayer Protection Amendment and opponents call Bride of TABOR may be decided by which side has the better marketing people -- or the most money. Just like we decide most things these days, by the way.

There is this, though: Amendment supporters use "Let the people decide" as a rallying cry. Eggleston notes:

WMC and AFP quote former Gov. Lee S. Dreyfus out of context. The slogan "Let the people decide" was Dreyfus' rallying cry against Bob Kasten, whom Dreyfus portrayed as the big money candidate in a primary that Dreyfus won. "Now WMC is reviving it as a slogan for the money," says Bill Kraus, a Common Cause activist who was the former governor's communications director. "How cruel."

Dreyfus hasn't spoken out publicly on the latest version of the amendment, but he strongly opposed the earlier version of TABOR when it was before the legislature in 2004. He even cut a radio commercial that said:

Our constitution gives the legislature all the power it needs to curb spending.

Amending the constitution is a terrible way to make public policy.

We just don't need the TABOR amendment.

We need legislators with the backbone to say no to wasteful spending.

Dreyfus doesn't own the "Let the people decide" slogan, of course, and certainly wasn't the first person ever to say it. But it's ironic that it has become the slogan to pass an amendment he probably would oppose.

It's also more than a little ironic that many of the same people who use that slogan oppose the effort to let citizens have a voice on the Iraq war in referenda on the ballot in about 20 Wisconsin communities next month. "The people" are paying for that war, too.