Andrew Sanborn: CACR 12 restricts future voters so why chance constitution?

To The Daily Sun,

We are told that CACR 12 is about trusting voters — so much so that we must permanently restrict what future voters are allowed to decide. The argument assures us that Granite Staters have already settled the income tax question “once and for all,” which raises an important follow‑up: if the people have already decided forever, why must the Constitution be amended to protect them from deciding again?

We are also told that this amendment “takes the question off the table,” as if democratic debate were a defect rather than a feature of representative government. The premise appears to be that voters are wise enough to elect legislators, wise enough to vote on this amendment today, but somehow insufficiently wise to be trusted with tax policy choices at any point in the future — unless those choices align with current preferences.

The amendment is presented as a defense of the New Hampshire Advantage, yet it does so by freezing one policy option while leaving all others — property taxes, fees, service cuts — fully available and increasingly unavoidable. In this way, CACR 12 protects taxpayers in theory while ensuring that the most regressive and least flexible taxes remain the most dependable tools in practice.

Finally, we are asked to “trust the voters,” but only this once, and only in one direction. Should future voters face different economic realities, affordability crises, or funding challenges, they will be welcomed to the ballot box — as long as they are willing to accept the constitutional limits we impose on them today.

In short, CACR 12 is described as empowering voters by limiting them, protecting choice by eliminating options, and strengthening democracy by removing future debates from democratic reach. If that seems consistent, then the amendment needs no explanation. If not, perhaps the question should remain on the table.

Andrew Sanborn

Sanbornton