The Voters Have Spoken But Is Congress Listening?

By Jean Hocker President, Land Trust Alliance

In Solebury Township, PA, 90 percent of the voters who cast ballots in November 1999 voted in favor of issuing $10 million in bonds for open space. The citizens of Woodstock, CT were even more decisive. All of them at a town meeting May 3, 1999, voted to create a land acquisition fund. But citizens of small towns were not the only ones in 1999 who put their money where their hearts are and voted in favor of open space protection.

In Phoenix, AZ, 80 percent of those who cast their ballots in September 1999 voted to increase the sales tax to create a $256 million fund for open space acquisition. In Miami, FL, 87 percent of the voters last November approved a $24 million bond for parks and public beaches.

In New Jersey, 35 communities voted to increase or somehow change their property taxes to fund protection of open spaces, farmland, parks, historic landmarks or to purchase conservation easements to limit the scope and type of development.

Indeed, voters in 22 states passed 92 of 102 ballot questions in 1999 authorizing funding for open space preservation and parks. As a result of the stunning support, America's communities have more than $1.8 billion in new funding for land protection and parks.

The referenda results mirror voting patterns in 1998 when voters passed 84 percent of the 148 ballot questions for open space funding.

Has Congress noticed?

The Conservation and Reinvestment Act is a bipartisan proposal that would provide up to $3 billion annually for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the Urban Park and Recreation Recovery Program and other federal programs that could help state and local governments — and nonprofit, grassroots land trusts working directly with landowners — to preserve land. It has 315 cosponsors among the 435 members of the House of Representatives — including a majority of both parties.

Some people would look at the number of House cosponsors and assume passage of this historic measure is assured. Lamentably, it's not.

The House leadership still needs to be persuaded to bring the legislation to the floor for a vote. Then the Senate, where half a dozen similar bills have been introduced, must be persuaded to act.

By all logic, lawmakers should already be persuaded to pass the bill just because they are listening to what voters have said in voting booths in 1998 and again last year. Three hundred fifteen House members have heard the voters' voice. We hope their leaders, and their Senate colleagues, are listening too.

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