From my SO, a LTE for the Columbian:

In defending the supermajority requirement for school funding elections, Ms. Hovde's writing in The Columbian, February 24, 2005, was particularly unfettered by logic, reason or accuracy.

To provide a remedial civics lesson for Ms. Hovde, except in extraordinary cases such as the 2000 Presidential election, the majority does rule. Ms. Hovde is just plain wrong when she makes the statement that "in any given election, the reality is, the majority rarely rules" It is a very simple concept. In the vast majority of elections, whoever gets the most votes - wins. Contrary to the title of her opinion piece, a simple majority is just that - simple! It may not be the majority Ms. Hovde would like to see voting, but it is the majority of voters who vote in an election who rule the outcome of the election. Simple.

Further in her article she states that school employees "make up a good bulk of voters in lots of communities." She references the fact that in Clark County the Evergreen and Vancouver school districts are among the top three slots and the Battle Ground school district rounds out the top ten of the largest employers in Clark County. She then uses this information to conclude that if one were to "Isolate school employees in their given community . . . they can dominate a voting area."

Again, it's back to school for Ms. Hovde for math class this time. If we add up all the employees in every school district in Clark County and we assume that all of them are eligible to vote in Clark County we have a total of about 8100 voters. According to Mr. Kimsey at the Clark County elections office, there are approximately 203000 registered voters in the county. Apparently in Ms. Hovde's world, the 8100 cuts a "large swath" through the 203000.

In her next paragraph she insinuates that the taxes that are levied to support our schools only affect a small group of people, the landed gentry, and those people need to be protected somehow from all those apartment dwellers. The truth is that providing funding for education affects every single person in Clark County and not providing funding for education affects every single person in Clark County. We are all affected by the quality of our schools.

Ms. Hovde's statement that school employees are likely to vote in favor of school levies because it will benefit them personally is completely misplaced. They vote in favor of the levies for the same reason they are teachers. They are committed to providing the best education to the children of Clark County, they believe in what they are doing, and they understand the need to provide adequate funding for schools.

Ms Hovde certainly has a right to her opinions concerning the foibles of our taxation system. If she truly wants to effect a positive change, she needs to work a little harder on the facts and presenting a reasoned approach. In this issue she has resorted to misstatements because to look at it from the 'simple' view she espouses, the 60% supermajority requirement is indefensible. The simple majority should rule. It's a no-brainer.