Should Voting Be Restricted to Property Owners Only?

[guywithashovel]

http://www.nashvillescene.com/pitw/a...roperty-owners

Judson Phillips, president of Tea Party Nation, seems to think so. There's a quote in the link where he explains his view.

Evidently, people who don't own property don't have as much "vested interest" in their communities as people who do own it.

[AdminAssistant]

So, basically, disenfranchising the poor and young, i.e. those who tend to be more liberal, yes? Sounds like Tea Party policy. I may not pay property taxes, but I pay the rent that my landlord uses to pay property taxes. I pay sales tax and income tax. I put plenty into the community.

[Akasa]

So all those people renting apartments shouldn't get to vote huh? Where's my pitchfork and torch?

[Rageaholic]

His arguement is BS. Owning a property has nothing to do with vested interest. It sounds like a control ploy to me.

[drunkenwildmage]

I can understand the reasoning behind this. I've bought my house in 2004. In the time since 2004 , despite the fact that my home lost over 30% of it's value, and that we now qualify for the "Homestead exemption" my property taxes have doubled because of people blindly voting every levy through that came up for election.

The Problem around here is, that the people who rent (And their are a lot) , don't typically make the connection that the reason their rent goes up is because they voted in the latest tax. traditionally, they are locked into there rent payments based on the lease. Come time for lease renew, when the rent goes up they blame it on the evil Landlord, no on the fact that his/her expenses have increased because of the tax rate. The latest thing I've heard that landlords have been trying, is to directly tie the tax rate into the monthly rent on the less.

(IE: Your rent is $495 a mount plus $25 for prop taxes.. If takes go up, then you rent will be $495 a month plus $35 for prop taxes)

[linguist]

i would be fine with this if "having no vested interest" means i pay no taxes whatsoever. no sales taxes, no income taxes, nothing. if i have no say in the taxes levied against, then they shouldn't apply to me.

disenfranchise a large portion of the country because they can't afford to own property is beyond unreasonable.

as for that, what constitutes ownership? technically, until your house is paid off, it's owned by the bank, so do only banks and those with paid-off houses get to vote?

[FArchivist]

http://www.nashvillescene.com/pitw/a...roperty-owners

Judson Phillips, president of Tea Party Nation, seems to think so. There's a quote in the link where he explains his view.

Evidently, people who don't own property don't have as much "vested interest" in their communities as people who do own it.

This is a standard originalist interpretation, in line with the Founding Fathers Washington, Madison, and Jefferson, who all promulgated this line of thought.

[Boozy]

i would be fine with this if "having no vested interest" means i pay no taxes whatsoever. no sales taxes, no income taxes, nothing. if i have no say in the taxes levied against, then they shouldn't apply to me.

No taxation without representation, you say?

Kind of similar to the issue that had a bunch of guys tossing barrels into the Boston harbour a couple hundred years ago.

What did they call that event again?

In all seriousness, I can't imagine this is a proposal being made in earnest. It falls apart for anyone who thinks about it for more than one minute.

I liked this line from the article:

...as if the people who are older and can afford a home are somehow better citizens than the 18-year-olds who are going off to war to die for our country.

That alone makes this one a political non-starter.

[guywithashovel]

A while ago on this site (I think), someone said something along the lines of "Well, since the Tea Party wants us to go back to the will of the founding fathers, I guess they want to go back to only allowing white male land owners the right to vote."

I think we now have affirmation of that. Granted, this is just one Tea Party person, but I'm not seeing any refutation from fellow Tea Party members.

[KitterCat]

So going by this guy we’ve got to own 10 acres of land in order to vote? Heck no. Next they’ll be saying we need to get ride of women’s right to vote. After all the founding fathers didn’t let that happen either.

I swear I like a lot about the Tea Party (lower taxes, smaller government) but there are times I just have to wonder about who they have representing them.

[blas87]

I don't even care what this makes others think of me, I support the Tea Party and I don't like this idea one bit.

ETA: I think it's an assumption that poor people rent or don't own homes. You don't have to be well off to own a home, considering how many people's homes have been foreclosed.

My biggest beef with voting is that felons are still voting, and getting upset when it's discovered they have. It's a right that is taken away when you break the law, yet this year alone in the state of Wisconsin, several felons were found to have voted, and they protested back.

[BlaqueKatt]

My biggest beef with voting is that felons are still voting, and getting upset when it's discovered they have. It's a right that is taken away when you break the law, yet this year alone in the state of Wisconsin, several felons were found to have voted, and they protested back.

they are allowed to.

sorry-another example of "knowing the law" vs. knowing the law.

only in 12 states is it permanent(and that depends on crime committed, date crime committed, and other variables)-it varies by state, in WI People with felony convictions may vote upon completion of all supervised release.

list of laws by state here

In Maine And Vermont you can vote while in Prison.

[Hyena Dandy]

So going by this guy we’ve got to own 10 acres of land in order to vote? Heck no. Next they’ll be saying we need to get ride of women’s right to vote. After all the founding fathers didn’t let that happen either.

I swear I like a lot about the Tea Party (lower taxes, smaller government) but there are times I just have to wonder about who they have representing them.

That's one of my (many) problems with the tea party. They're so intent on bringing new blood into the political system that they don't check to make sure the blood doesn't have any infections, so to speak.

[Skunkle]

I think the non-politician supporters of the Tea Party generally have a good idea, but I see three problems with it: First, it's too vague. They want change, but this seems to mean simply "something different than what we have", or the nebulous and vague "the way things used to be". For example, ask most of these guys WHEN they're talking about, and chances are they can't specify - they just *know* things used to be better "back then".

Second, I think the guys running for office under the Tea Party line are mostly "business as usual" Republicans which, generally, are NOT into small government like traditional Conservatives; big government, tax breaks mainly for corporations and the wealthy, etc.

My third issue is that these politicians manage to convince the Tea Party supporters that they're going to do something different, and yet I don't think they will. Any of them. Their "grassroots" campaigning is never really "grassroots", it's multi-million-dollar campaigning with a fake down-home facade glued on, and I think they know quite well that they're not going to do what their Tea Party supporters think they're going to do.

...though I also LOL hard at Tea Party people calling themselves (if only for a short time) "teabaggers"...

[Hyena Dandy]

My other problem here is the idea that I, because I don't pay taxes (I live at home with my parents, don't have a steady enough job to make enough money. Once I have one, I will) am somehow not invested in the community.

Ignoring that I do still pay sales tax etc, I have just as much of a vested interest in the community as anyone else does. I LIVE in it. That's enough of a vested interest for me, and it should be enough of a vested interest for anyone else as well. If living in a community doesn't count as a vested interest, I don't know what does.