Protect your interests

Three proposed state constitutional amendments on today’s ballot deal with the control of private and state assets. Two deal with property, while the other directs state taxes to limited universities.

Proposition 4 seeks to create a special fund, which would combine new tax money with the assets from the existing Higher Education Fund, and channel them toward "emerging research universities."

For all its size and resources, Texas has three universities that are established prominent research centers and considered "Tier 1" schools. They are the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M and Rice University. In passing the legislation proposing this amendment, lawmakers expressed a desire to bring more universities up to the elite level.

The criteria for Tier 1 status aren’t definite, and Prop 4 allows the state to determine what schools they will fund. Standards that are discussed generally include membership in the Association of American Universities, successful graduate programs, established private endowments that fund professorships, graduate fellowships, scholarships and research, and successful acquisition of federal research grants.

It’s fair to ask why the schools that already get the most money from private sources should be first in line for state taxpayers’ money. Supporters say matching state funds can help draw even more private dollars, and donors prefer to give to colleges and programs that already have support from other sources.

The relative youth of the two Rio Grande Valley universities suggests that they would be pretty low on the list of any schools considered for any money from the new fund. The list hasn’t been set, but the schools most in the running for such designation include the University of Houston, Texas Tech, University of North Texas, and UT branches at Arlington, Dallas, El Paso and San Antonio.

Favoring specific schools for limited funds necessarily deprives others of similar support, regardless of the relative merits of their research.

Private investment is the best way to fund university research, and businesses already do so. If taxpayers’ money is to be used for such efforts, it should be done on the merits of research, not on the name of the university asking for it.

Proposition 9 seeks to strengthen the Texas Open Beaches Act, which essentially states that the land between the low and high tide lines is public property. The high tide mark is taken to be the mark where vegetation ends and the beach begins.

That has caused problems for hundreds of private landowners who have bought and built on property near the beach line, only to find natural erosion creep into their property. The state already has seized hundreds of such properties, with no compensation given to the people who have invested hundreds of thousands, and even millions, of their dollars into that property. Of course, hotels and other commercial sites along those same lines haven’t been taken over by the government.

Damage from last year’s Hurricane Ike has left many Galveston-area residents in limbo, not knowing if they should repair the damage or if the state will take over their property, making such improvements a waste of their money.

If the Open Beaches Act needs amending, it needs to set guidelines whereby those landowners would be properly compensated for the taking of their property, as required under the U.S. Constitution.

Proposition 11 addresses such seizures directly, and deserves passage. This is the state’s answer to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling in the Kelo v. New London, Conn., case that higher taxes are in the public’s interest, and governments could seize homesteads and give the land to commercial developers. This amendment would prohibit such takings of private property to benefit private recipients, even if they are companies that would create higher tax revenue than the homeowner.

All proposals on today’s ballot directly affect Texans’ rights and taxes. It behooves all registered voters to study the proposals and make their preferences known. Once those rights are curtailed, and the money is taken, it will be too late to act, and useless to complain.