Referendum recalls too easy?

A House committee approved a bill designed to make it more difficult to recall operating referenda for school districts.

Sponsored by Rep. Bud Nornes (R-Fergus Falls), HF322 would require that 30 percent of registered voters in a district sign a written petition in order to force a referendum on revoking a school levy increase. The current threshold is 15 percent.

Nornes said the legislation was drafted at the request of the Frazee-Vergas School District, which fought for years to pass a referendum on an operating levy increase, only to have a group of citizens try to revoke the referendum after it had passed.

Although the group failed to get the reverse referendum on the ballot because of a legal technicality, Nornes said having the school operating levy revoked would have been financially disastrous for the school district. He argued that it would encourage other disgruntled property-taxpayers to take similar actions in the future.

“I think at that point you would have seen other districts in the state of Minnesota having folks decide … ‘OK, we’ll fight this and lower our property taxes. To heck with the school,’” Nornes said.

Opponents included Rep. Steve Gottwalt (R-St. Cloud), who said citizens’ ability to revoke referenda is a necessary, albeit messy, part of the democratic process. He also said there is no evidence to suggest that such reverse referenda are becoming a trend.

“I’m willing to have a conversation about whether or not the threshold is small and being abused, but the evidence so far suggests that it’s not,” Gottwalt said.

Approved Feb. 19 by the House State and Local Government Operations Reform, Technology and Elections Committee, it next goes to the House Finance Committee.

A companion, SF314, sponsored by Sen. Dan Skogen (DFL-Hewitt), awaits action by the Senate E-12 Education Budget and Policy Division.