Thank goodness -- election season is almost over. You'll miss it when it's gone, you know you will.

Until then check out our interviews on the site this week of Jack Kingston, Bill Gillespie, Saxby Chambliss, Jim Martin, John Barrow, and John Stone, with additional appearances by Judge Perry Brannen and -- wait for it -- former world heavyweight champion Larry Holmes.

As most of you know by now, we don’t do formal political endorsements here, for a couple of reasons. First, we believe our readers are smart enough to make up their own minds and don’t need us telling them how to vote.

Secondly, newspaper endorsements actually do very little to move votes either way. They’re usually an exercise in vanity — an exercise I prefer to leave alone.

That said, I’ll break my rule this once to implore you to vote against a particularly insidious proposal to change the state constitution. You will see it as Amendment 3 on your ballot.

This is the so-called “Private Cities” proposal, which would essentially give private developers the authority to tax homeowners. In my mind this clearly violates the U.S. Constitution, both in spirit and in letter, and should certainly be rejected as part of our own state constitution.

As I recall from history class, our forefathers went to considerable lengths to make sure there was no taxation without representation in America. Amendment 3 is a gross insult to their sacrifice and to their memory, and that’s why I urge you to strike a blow for citizen empowerment by voting “no” on it this Tuesday.

If the constitutional argument doesn’t move you, perhaps the real red flag should be the fact that it’s supported by developers, bankers, and Chambers of Commerce all over Georgia. That pretty much tells me all I need to know.

I’m also taking a stand on this out of disgust with the way these ballot initiatives are pushed down our throats these days. Despite their “grassroots” veneer, in reality they’re almost always advanced by moneyed interests, and almost always worded as densely as possible so that the voters cannot quite make out what the proposal actually is.

Worse, research tells us that people have a strange tendency to vote “yes” on ballot initiatives — even ones they don’t understand — therefore said moneyed interests always make sure that the wording is oriented toward a “yes” vote.

Tell ‘em what they can do with their “private cities.” Tell ‘em not just no — but hell no.