COLUMBIA -- A resolution letting voters decide in November if property reassessments should be capped received key Senate approval Thursday.

The ballot question would ask voters if they want to limit how much property values can go up during reassessment. County assessors could not increase values more than 15 percent every five years. The limit would not apply to property sold or improved between reassessment cycles.

The measure does not address the elimination of property taxes using a sales tax increase, as a House proposal does.

Senate Democrats tried to insert their own rollback provision in the resolution that passed Thursday but failed. The proposal would have eliminated school-operating taxes on all classes of property.

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Sen. John Land of Manning, the leader of Senate Democrats, called the reassessment cap passed Thursday "much ado about nothing."

He said the cap would help those in areas where property values were jumping but not in areas where people have seen little increases in property values.

He predicted voters in his county would not approve it because those whose property value was not climbing would not want to pay the additional tax burden for those whose values were capped.

"This ain't got nothing to do with a tax cut," he said. "It has everything to do with how your taxes are figured. Even the one who is capped, his property is still going to go up 15 percent. His taxes are still going to go up."

But Sen. David Thomas, a Greenville County Republican who supports a reassessment cap, said property owners should be pleased with Thursday's action. He said the caps revamp a system that he said had become "antiquated and ineffective."

"This is a big day," he said. "If you're paying $1,000 now for your owner-occupied home, five years from now, you couldn't pay more than $1,150. This takes care of the aberration we've seen over and over again of 100 percent and 200 percent increases in property tax. And it helps industry and commercial because the same rule is for them."

Thomas said Thursday's action virtually guarantees some sort of cap on reassessment will go before voters in November.

Sen. Larry Martin, a Pickens Republican, agreed.

"I'm more optimistic today than I was two weeks ago," he said. "I think we're all trying to get to the same objective. "

The proposed change to the state Constitution easily won the necessary two-thirds approval.

"This is Robin Hood in reverse," said Sen. Clementa Pinckney, D-Ridgeland, one of two to vote against the measure. "These tax cap proposals favor those with the most expensive properties. We are spreading the taxes to those with some of the least expensive property."

Voters could opt out the new system on a county-by-county basis. But Pinckney said poor homeowners in Beaufort County, for example, would be outvoted by the affluent who would benefit.

Republicans argued against putting the Democratic proposal before voters, saying a ballot question cannot be two-pronged.

Thomas said it would confuse voters who might support one part of the question and not the other.

Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, offered to break his proposal into a separate question. Under his amendment, a "yes" from voters would make the state responsible for all school operating costs and remove about 60 percent of the taxes from all property, including businesses, cars and rental homes.

Hutto said the expected $2 billion cost could be funded through a combination of increased sales, cigarette and alcohol taxes, removing sales tax exemptions and, if necessary, a statewide property tax.

"Turn all the cost of education over to the state," Land said. "This is the only way South Carolina will ever catch up ... so that a child in Clarendon County has the same opportunity as a child in Rock Hill."

Sen. Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, called it a compelling argument but said it was neither "the time nor the hour" to propose it. He said his subcommittee should study it as it tweaks a House plan.

Leatherman's panel will take up a package approved by the House last week that cuts most property taxes on owner-occupied homes by increasing the state sales tax from 5 cents to 7 cents.

Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, has repeatedly said the Senate needs to keep the reassessment question and the tax-swap separate. Tacking one on to the other would kill both efforts, he said.

McConnell said he might vote for Hutto's proposal if he knew how the state would pay for it. But he would not support any funding plan that includes a statewide property tax.

"That's a tax disguise," he said.

Hutto said his proposal "will come back up again" as the property tax debate continues.

Staff writer Tim Smith and the Associated Press contributed to this report.