Lyons: Let's start with the simplest one: the banning of the property tax, and right now the legislature, if it wanted to, if a majority wanted to, could institute a statewide property tax. I believe there was one way back. I don't think there's the least bit of interest in doing that right now. But the leadership of the General Assembly figured, let's go ahead and clarify and say that's not an option.
Sieber: Who do you think benefits the most from this amendment if it were to pass?
Lyons: Anybody who would benefit in one sense would be a potential taxpayer, who would then be saying, "I'm going to know that I'm not going to have an additional tax burden that that I'm going to have to confront. So that would be the person who would benefit if you, as anybody would in a tax situation who would benefit from lower taxes. Of course, you could argue they would not gain the benefits of whatever additional services those taxes might produce. That's the flip side of that.
Now, one could argue: Does that really belong in the Constitution, or is that something you just want to leave to subsequent legislative bodies? Because what you're really saying is, at some point, if the legislative body wanted to, they couldn't.
SIEBER: Let’s move on to the other proposed constitutional amendments. Can you provide insight on the amendment that concerns rights for crime victims?
Lyons: That assures that the victims and victims' families are kept aware of the state of the judicial process throughout, so that you know whether everything involved in trials and hearings and appeals and potential, you know, votes for parole, everything that that it's modeled after some legislation in other states. So that would be in here. They decided let's just make that constitutionally protected victims' rights as well.
Sieber: What about amendment 1 that concerns judges’ right to hold a defendant without bail for certain serious crimes?
Lyons: The amendment one is the one of the three that's gotten the most attention, and that's the one that gives judges the option of withholding bail for a number, and you mentioned a very large number, a number of crimes, all of which are are violent, serious crimes, and that and that's because the present language in the Constitution gives a right to bail for everything but capital cases. That is very strong, you know, a protection, an individual protection that many have thought that judges have need to be able to keep somebody off the streets, basically for a very serious crime, and that that that's all in a very gray area now, and they not only want to give the judges the option of withholding bail for these crimes, but or accuse crimes when that's that's a point of people of which people enter the conversation not only to with to withhold bail in those crimes but also to have to explain the reasons for either granting or not granting, so there's a transparency element of it too.
Sieber: What are some reactions to this proposed amendment?
Lyons: Many do not approve of it. Some in the Democratic Party thinking, ‘you know, this does, in fact, get into the presumption–of–innocence area’. That you know, when somebody is accused of a crime and they are incarcerated and maybe not tried for you know a good while, then they're obviously being punished prior to being convicted. That that's a an area that any notion of bail in our society has to confront, and of course the argument on the other side is the society needs to be protected from from somebody who might commit these kinds of horrendous crimes and get them off the streets if the evidence is strong that they'd be a danger to society.
Sieber: That was William Lyons, the associate director of the University of Tennessee Institute of American Civics. Thank you so much for your time, Bill.
Lyons: Okay, thank you very much.
This interview was edited for clarity.
