Smart is as smart does

Republicans at the Statehouse often like to portray themselves as the party of principle and majority party Democrats as the tools of special interests. But the GOP can be every bit as disingenuous as Democrats. It is a political trait rather than a partisan one.
Case in point: last week Republicans tried to have it both ways during a hearing on a package of election-related bills. Follow along.
Rep. Susan Story, R-Barrington, testified on her bill to ban straight party levers. Her point was that people are too easily confused by the levers. They don't understand their options. For instance, that they can vote for a candidate in another party even if they pull the straight party lever. Although she would never say the words out loud, what she meant was that people are not smart enough to understand their options.
A few bills down the agenda there was the Voter Iniative bill, which would allow citizens to circulate a petition to put an issue on the ballot without General Assembly approval. One criticism of the idea is that special interests would be able to come in, spread around their money and unfairly influence the vote. Now Republicans, who have been the primary sponsors of the bill, took a different view of voters. Now, because it supported their position, voters were too smart to be swayed by special interests.
Can't have it both ways. If voters are not smart enough to understand how to cast their vote how can they be too smart to resist the pull of special interests in a referendum campaign.
I think voters are smart enough to both resist special interests propaganda (the casino question is a perfect example) and understand how to vote. There are legitimate arguments to buttress the case for either of those two ideas. Trying to portray the relative smarts of voters - some are, some aren't - is not.