Bob Lemer, principal author of the Houston TABOR and a retired partner of a Big Four accounting firm, wrote a piece which deserves attention.  His piece chronicles the Houston TABOR effort and Houston Mayor White's efforts to thwart the will of the people in getting it enacted.  The piece ran 8-24-06 in The New Katy News (click here to read Lemer’s article)

The November 6, 2006 election on mayor and presidential aspirant Bill White’s proposed amendment to the Houston city charter should be a real donnybrook.  White is proposing to gut the Houston Prop 2 Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR), which was approved in November 2004 by 242,697 Houstonians, more votes than the mayor received when elected.

White is likely to find that the light at the end of his presidential aspiration tunnel actually is an oncoming voter train, particularly when Houstonians find out that White is hypocritically: (a) paying property taxes on only about half of the fair market value (according to the appraisal district) of his home; and (b) refusing to rebate to Houstonians the $8 million by which the city’s total property tax revenues exceeded the fiscal 2006 cap set by his own diversionary Prop 1, also approved by Houstonians in 2001.  The facts in (a) and (b) are public record, per the appraisal district’s and city’s official web sites.