The state has some questions on the ballot. They are all proposed constitutional amendments.
- The constitutional amendment permitting a person to hold more than one office as a municipal judge at the same time.
- The constitutional amendment providing for the issuance of additional general obligation bonds by the Texas Water Development
Board in an amount not to exceed $200 million to provide financial assistance for the development of certain projects in economically
distressed areas. - The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to provide for a temporary exemption from ad valorem taxation of a portion
of the appraised value of certain property damaged by a disaster. - The constitutional amendment prohibiting the imposition of an individual income tax, including a tax on an individual’s share of
partnership and unincorporated association income. - The constitutional amendment dedicating the revenue received from the existing state sales and use taxes that are imposed on
sporting goods to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the Texas Historical Commission to protect Texas’ natural areas,
water quality, and history by acquiring, managing, and improving state and local parks and historic sites while not increasing the
rate of the state sales and use taxes. - The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to increase by $3 billion the maximum bond amount authorized for
the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. - The constitutional amendment allowing increased distributions to the available school fund.
- The constitutional amendment providing for the creation of the flood infrastructure fund to assist in the financing of drainage,
flood mitigation, and flood control projects. - The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to exempt from ad valorem taxation precious metal held in a precious metal
depository located in this state. - The constitutional amendment to allow the transfer of a law enforcement animal to a qualified caretaker in certain circumstances
Number 3 strikes me as unnecessary. If property is damaged (whether by a disaster or any other way) its appraised value should decrease because it is worth less.
It would have been nice if our local news media had done a better job informing us of what the issues are behind each of the proposals.
The Times evidently did run an article but they only deliver my newspaper about 60% of the time.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
“permitting a person to hold more than one office as a municipal judge at the same time” – How would a single person holding multiple municipal judge offices simultaneously serve the public interest? This literally makes no sense, even in rural districts.
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I think the powers that be would prefer the average private-sector El Pasoan stay home so the public sector can turn out and vote for more debt and higher taxes. Hence, marginal news coverage. I’ve voted no to it. I was actually amazed at the size of the ballot and the lack of any news coverage beyond the bond issue. Brutus, thank you for giving folks some heads up. Get out and vote, because low turnout will get us a bond issue.
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Don’t blame it all on the public sector. The same group of private business leaders behind the ballpark, the QOL bond, downtown redevelopment, subsidized real estate development, and now Great Wolf and the arena, also wants this new bond passed because it has a disclaimer enabling the city council to move dollars from planned uses to their projects.
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My point was that our local politicians and their key donors are playing the same games the PRI in Mexico did. Every bond issue they convince public sector employees (who currently represent close to 80% of the workers in this area), that voting for this tax increasing debt will make their lives better or increase job security. I don’t think public sector employees are bad—I just think that they are easily manipulated by our current leaders.
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Here is a link to all 10 Propositions on the ballot and a good description of what each means.
https://www.texastribune.org/2019/10/15/texas-2019-constitutional-amendments-what-voters-need-know/
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No on #1 and #4…why should we today tell voters in the future that they cannot create an income tax if that is needed???
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We already have a ridiculous and out of control property tax. Why give government a chance to create a brand new direct tax to us all when we’ve never needed it in the past? We need to have politicians learn to make government operate within a conservative structure.
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Property taxes in places like EP will never drop if we get a state income tax. Our local tax and spenders will just raise valuations if state forces a drop in property tax—it’s what they did when school funding was reformed to lower property taxes. We don’t need to give them another way to pick our pockets. If you like state income tax move to New Mexico. It’s hard to believe this country was founded by folks leading a tax revolt.
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Shapleigh was a big proponent of enacting a state income tax. He was also the architect of the progressive tax and spend strategy, and the political machine that is bankrupting us.
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Some of you just can’t stop blaming the same people even when they have been out of office for a decade and weren’t even holding office when the Quality of Life and ballpark deals were pushed through by a small group of wealthy business people. Those are the people responsible for what is happening here. They are the people getting ballparks, tax subsidies and lots of other stuff at the expense of taxpayers. Those people are not even in the same party as Shapleigh. They are not friends of Shapleigh. Shapleigh wasn’t the architect of the downtown ballpark or the trolley or the Great Wolf giveaway.
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Back when the Times still had local staff writing the paper Charlie Ergen mapped out the political strategy that turned into the nightmare we have now. The Dem party in EP split into two factions: the Reyes faction and the Shapleighites. Most of the Reyes faction got rounded up in various FBI raids. At the same time corruption was mysteriously being cleaned out of that wing of the party, Shapleigh created a program called Community Scholars which starting educating and grooming young progressives to become future politicians for the Shapleighite wing of the Dem party. Look at the resumes of most of our local politicians and they’ll list Community Scholars. I don’t disagree that rich Republicans aren’t part of our debt problem but idiocy like the trolley, nightmarish, difficult to maintain public art, a bus system on steroids that few people ride and the city manager form of government are all the product of the Shapleigh wing of the Dem party. The Reyes wing was content with lining their pockets and getting their relatives government-related jobs while keeping taxes low. The Shapleighites believe they will change the face of El Paso by making it into a San Diego or Phoenix. The problem is they fail to realize those cities are much better at economic development and a lot more diverse in population. We aren’t attracting the corporate headquarters that help fuel economic growth. We’ve just attracted the leeches that migrate to places where city leaders spend money on a good sales pitch aligned with their “vision” and don’t demand results.
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Why should we decide for future voters today to impose a tax on them?
Voters in the future can vote to decide if they would like to pay a State personal income tax and vote on a future ballot proposition.
As for this voter in the present today I want NO state income tax and will be voting YES on #4
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