Professor sees an end to amendment votes for now

After Tuesday’s rejection of two tax-and-spend amendments to the Iowaconstitution, one political scientist does NOT expect the voters will beasked to amend the document again anytime soon.Iowa State University political science professor Steffen Schmidt says itappears many people took the tack of -quote- “if it ain’t broke, don’t fixit.” Schmidt says he doubts state legislators will change the way they handlefuture tax increases and budgets.While negative ad campaigns usually turn voters off, Schmidt says theopposite was true this time, evidenced by the higher-than-expected voterturnout and the close results.Schmidt says both the Vote Yes and Vote No campaigns were deliberately vagueon some issues, were of poor quality and at times hysterical.