My friend Mike Mahoney has weighed in on the overwhelming "yes" vote Tuesday for Jackson County's COMBAT tax. 

   His reporting:  Supporters may have won the day by putting the tax on the 2009 ballot, almost all by itself, allowing voters to focus only on crime and drug abuse.

   That's clearly one good explanation.  Let me suggest another:

     Kansas City and Jackson County no longer have organized, consistent, credible anti-tax groups or spokespeople to oppose tax measures put before voters.

      In the 1980s and 1990s, that wasn't the case.   For years a coalition of anti-tax groups and figures engaged city and county leaders in a series of tax increase campaigns, opposing everything from capital improvement sales taxes to Emanuel Cleaver's "Odyssey 2000" and a proposed McDonnell-Douglas tax hike to various school district levy increases.

    One group -- Stop Taxing Our People Now, known as STOP Now -- held news conferences, made phone calls, mailed out fliers, even aired a commercial or two.

    Now, these groups weren't rich. STOP Now and others were always dramatically outspent in the 1980s and 1990s, but their arguments were always considered legitimate and coherent by reporters and voters.  Tax increase supporters knew they had to engage the anti-tax crowd and did so.  Sometimes they won, but sometimes they lost, too.

   In the late 1990s and early 2000s, though, the anti-tax effort began to fall apart.  Paul Danaher, a STOP Now leader,  dropped his mayoral campaign and abandoned city politics.  Consultants Pat Gray and Steve Glorioso, anti-tax activists, switched sides -- becoming key figures in supporting tax measures like more money for the police and fire departments or capital improvements.

   (And, let's be honest -- mass media changed.  Television stations which once covered tax increase elections each day have reduced that coverage, as has the newspaper, making it harder for legitimate anti-tax groups to get the free media they need to thrive.)

   The result?  While there are pockets of opposition -- and at times coherent arguments against tax measures -- there is really no mechanism in KC or Jackson County around which anti-tax groups can coalesce.  The anti-tax effort is now predictably spotty, disorganized, and for many voters simply not heard.

   (This isn't intended, by the way, to disparage Richard Tolbert, Bob Gough, Pat Tuohey, or even Tony Botello -- they all made good arguments against COMBAT.  But they would surely admit beating a well-funded campaign like COMBAT's requires time, energy, money, and high visibility -- none of which they had.)

    The COMBAT committee outspent opponents about 200,000 to one.

    Would a funded, organized opposition to COMBAT have made any difference?  Probably not.  After all, COMBAT first passed in 1989 -- and has now been renewed three more times.  It's clearly a popular levy.

   On the other hand, Kansas City's only recent rejection of a tax hike came during the last light rail campaign.  Is it a coincidence that the light rail sales tax had an organized, funded opposition (led, incidentally, by Pat O'Neill, who spearheaded the pro-COMBAT effort this month)?

    Some have suggested that reporters should be the "opposition" to a tax like COMBAT, but that really isn't what reporters do.  Instead, most reporters want a spirited, open, honest debate -- and then let voters decide.

   Increasingly in Kansas City and Jackson County there is no such debate -- the arguments are about as lopsided as you can get.

    That may be why turnout Tuesday was so low.  It may also explain why discussions are moving forward about tax measures for light rail, the police and fire departments, even sewer repairs -- and why Mike Sanders' promises to keep an eye on COMBAT will be, uh, interesting to follow.

   When almost no one is around to say 'no', we shouldn't be surprised to watch so many people say 'yes'.

   Discuss.