Connecticut voters in November will get a chance to make sure the tax money they thought was supposed to build and fix roads and other transportation projects is actually used for that purpose.
In doing so, Governing reports, they would join a growing number of states where voters have added “lockbox” amendments to their constitutions to safeguard road money. These measures almost always pass, whether it’s red- or blue-state voters weighing in.
Transportation advocates and many public officials hope the amendments can also make it easier, politically, for lawmakers to find more money for transportation projects down the road by raising fuel taxes or imposing tolls.
But while these amendments protect existing transportation funding, they have historically been less successful in persuading lawmakers to raise more money later to address long-term infrastructure needs. In several of the states where lockbox measures have passed, there are political obstacles to raising taxes and fees for transportation projects.
Voters are more likely, after all, to notice that the price of their gas went up than that the gas taxes they paid were actually used for something else.
Voters in Illinois, which has a $7.6 billion backlog in unpaid bills and credit ratings perilously close to junk bond status, approved a lockbox measure in 2016 after road builders complained that the financially beleaguered state used $6 billion of transportation money to boost its budgets over the course of the decade. Taking that money away made it harder for the state to meet its transportation needs, especially since the last time Illinois raised its fuel tax was more than 28 years ago.
Louisiana has gone just as long as Illinois without raising its gas tax, and lawmakers have struggled in recent years to find money for new transportation projects—like a new bridge over the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge.
Legislators did propose a constitutional amendment, which voters approved last year, to close loopholes in the state’s previous lockbox scheme.
In Connecticut, the legislative fight over the lockbox is wrapped up with the debate over new transportation funds, especially because the governor has raised the prospect of imposing tolls in the state for the first time in decades.
