Is Tim Eyman's I-960 unconstitutional?
Eyman's at it again, throwing up hurdles to raising taxes. As usual, the initiative is already in the courts, with opponents trying to declare I-960 unconstitutional. The court rulings in this area are so muddy that there's no easy call on whether Eyman is on safe legal footing.
Editor's note: Responses from the author to several reader comments are appended at the end of this article.
Washington's initiative king, Tim Eyman, claims that his Initiative 960 -- the only initiative on the Washington ballot this fall -- would restore some accountability to state government. Opponents, who think I-960 would tie state government up in procedural knots, argue that the measure is unconstitutional. Both may be right.
Opponents are trying to get I-960 declared unconstitutional before the November election. The state Supreme Court will hear the case September 6. Eyman says he's confident that the Supreme Court will let the people vote. He cites the 2005 Coppernoll decision in which the court refused to keep an initiative off the ballot, saying "[w]e do not substantively review the legislature's bills before enactment and will not do so with the people's right of direct legislation."
Initiative 960 would require a long list of hurdles for raising taxes. First would be a requirement for a two-thirds vote by each house of the state Legislature to pass any tax increase in taxes. Next would be legislative votes on fees now imposed by administrative agencies. Then there's a vote of the people on any tax increase that exceeded the state expenditure limit. The state would have to prepare a ten-year cost estimate for any revenue increase and email the information to the media and interested citizens. If the Legislature used an emergency clause to shield a revenue bill from referendum, the people would get an advisory vote. The voters' pamphlet would devote two pages to each advisory issue, listing all the legislators who voted for the original bill.
Eyman notes that requiring a two-thirds vote for taxes isn't new; his initiative would simply extend the scope of a two-thirds voting requirement established back in 1993 by Initiative 601 and reenacted twice by the Legislature itself. The Legislature has found ways around the requirement, he says, and passing I-960 would let "elected officials know that they're not going to be able to fly under the radar."
Eyman explains that his initiative would force legislators to take responsibility for government actions, force them to obey the law, and "shine more of a spotlight on" what they actually do. Opponents of his "government by initiative" argue that if you don't like what government does, all you have to do is vote the rascals out. "How do you do that," he asks, "if you don't know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are?" I-960 would let people know.
Not even Eyman can give a concise description of all that I-960 tries to do. "You asked for a short description of 960," he says apologetically, but "I just can't give it to you." He argues, though, that it's basically simple, and wouldn't create the burden on state government that critics fear. Some experts on state law and government disagree. They say that teasing out all the initiative's potential ramifications takes many readings and a lot of thought.
Futurewise and SEIU Healthcare Local 775NW, which represents home-care and nursing-home workers, are the groups trying to keep 960 off the ballot. They've lost in Superior Court and appealed directly to the Supreme Court. They argue that I-960 would use the initiative process to amend the state Constitution, which the Constitution itself clearly forbids. They reason that the public votes required for some tax measures and the advisory votes required for tax laws with emergency clauses are all really referenda, that 960 would short-circuit the Constitution's referendum process, and that therefore, it would be an amendment. They also reason that the Constitution requires a simple majority vote to pass legislation, so that requiring a two-thirds vote also constitutes an amendment.
The last point raises an obvious question: If the two-thirds vote required by I-960 would be unconstitutional, then the two-thirds vote required by I-601 was unconstitutional, too. Futurewise and Local 775 suggest that issue is now moot, since the Legislature itself has reaffirmed the requirement. Other people think it's not moot at all, and that the current statute is also unconstitutional.
Even if the state Supreme Court allows I-960 to go to the voters this fall, should the initiative win at the polls, it will clearly face more constitutional challenges. This would hardly be the first time an Eyman initiative had been found unconstitutional.
Eyman became a major public figure in 1999, when he sponsored Initiative 695 to cut everyone's automobile license tab fee to $30. Eyman's initiative passed overwhelmingly. Opponents sued. King County Superior Court Judge Robert Alsdorf ruled that the initiative -- which not only cut license tab fees but also required a vote of the people on every tax increase -- violated the long-established constitutional requirement that a single piece of legislation could address only a single subject. He ruled that it also unconstitutionally required referenda without going through the normal referendum procedure of gathering signatures. Eyman lost in court, but he and his supporters had the last laugh. Fearing the political forces Eyman had set loose, elected officials scurried to legislate the fee reduction that the people had unconstitutionally approved.
A year after I-695 passed, Eyman's second tax-cut initiative, I-722, also won handily. Once again it was ruled unconstitutional because it dealt with more than one subject. The year after that, his I-747 limited property tax increases to one percent, and this one is still undergoing judicial scrutiny. I-776 subsequently did away with licensing fees collected in four counties, an excise tax to finance mass transportation projects collected in three, and fees on light trucks, all of which had driven annual license payments above $30.
Two years ago, he tried a change of pace. His I-900 allowed Washington's state auditor to do performance audits of state and local government. Even mainstream media endorsed the initiative, and it passed handily.
Eyman says that I-960 "is not a kamikaze initiative, like we've done in the past." He hopes people will view this year's effort as they viewed I 900, rather than just reacting in the usual way to its sponsor.
You don't have to be a Tim Eyman fan to agree that the legislature's use of "emergency" clauses to shield its laws from referendum has gotten way out of hand. The constitution shields legislation from the referendum that is "necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety" or "support of the state government and its existing public institutions."
Courts have decided that "support of the state government" means you can't have a referendum on tax laws. Courts have also decided that "necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety" means basically whatever the legislature wants it to mean.
That has been the case ever since 1995, when an emergency clause notoriously helped the Seattle Mariners get public funding for Safeco Field. By mid-1995, the Mariners had enjoyed only two winning seasons -- ever. Not surprisingly, fans did not flock to Seattle's ugly concrete Kingdome to watch baseball played indoors on artificial turf by a losing team. That summer, with the baseball season in full swing, the people of King County were asked to pay for a new stadium. They voted, narrowly, against it. But just about the time the people were saying no, the Mariners took off. Starting 13 games behind the division-leading California Angels, they finished the season tied for first. They won a one-game playoff against the Angels, then faced the New York Yankees. Improbably, the Mariners won again. Much of the Seattle area had been captivated by the team's late-season heroics.
And yet, Mariners president John Ellis said that unless the public committed itself to a new stadium the team would go up for sale. State and local political leaders scrambled to come up with Plan B. "No less magical than the way the Mariners are performing on the field is the epiphany that has seized Washington's elected officials since the [stadium ballot measure's] apparent light loss at the polls," the Seattle Times editorialized in late September. "Predictions that voters are in no mood for tax increases proved accurate. But voters are in the mood for winning baseball."
Clearly, they were, but the paper reported in October that a majority of voters polled still "said they oppose using state money to build a new baseball stadium." Legislators didn't want to be responsible for "losing" the Mariners, though, and they didn't want their decision second-guessed by the people. They passed a stadium financing bill with an emergency clause that shielded it from referendum. Opponents sued. The state Supreme Court upheld the emergency clause. Basically the justices decided that if the Legislature said the prospect of losing the Mariners constituted an emergency, that was good enough for them.
That opened the floodgates. Earlier this year, the Times observed editorially that "[l]egislators are once again putting 'emergency clauses' on bills in order to short-circuit the public's right of referendum. In this session, these include bills to allow unions to spend nonmembers' dues, a bill to require signature gatherers to disclose their home addresses, a bill to subsidize a Sonics stadium and a bill to subsidize a NASCAR track. ... Years ago, when citizens challenged emergency clauses, the Washington Supreme Court used to toss out the bogus ones. Since the Mariner case a decade ago ... our highest court has accepted every emergency presented to it, no matter how farfetched. Our highest court should overrule the Mariner decision and once again subject legislative emergencies to rational thought. Until it does, legislators should restrain themselves from this form of constitutional abuse."
So Eyman's vision isn't that far out of the mainstream. One needn't endorse I-960 to view it as a genuine throwback to the kind of sentiment that created the initiative and referendum process in the first place. The Washington residents who advocated direct democracy in the early twentieth century did not trust legislators. The initiative and referendum institutionalized that popular mistrust -- not of government per se, but of the venal individuals who actually made the laws. Direct Democracy, published by the League of Women Voters of Washington Education Fund in 2002, explains:"Many Western voters believed that their legislators were only representing railroad, bank, and timber interests."
By the end of the last century, people who styled themselves populists believed instead that their legislators had bought into the values and viewpoints of big government. Corrupt government was no longer the perceived foe; government itself had become the issue.
Two hundred years earlier, the Founders designed a system of representative government that would insulate political decision-making from the mob. The authors of the Federalist papers worried that the masses would make a mess of things if they got their hands directly on the machinery of government. Roughly a century later, populists and progressives designed the initiative and referendum process to give the mob a direct role in decision-making. Another century has almost passed since that process reached Washington state. We're still not sure where it will lead.
Comments and clarifications related to reader replies, below:
To Tim Eyman:
The secretary of state's ballot description says: "This measure would require either a two-thirds vote in each house of the legislature or voter approval for all tax increases. New or increased fees would require prior legislative approval. An advisory vote would be required on any new or increased taxes enacted by the legislature without voter approval. The office of financial management would be required to publish cost information and information regarding legislators' voting records on bills imposing or increasing taxes or fees." Even if one assumes, as Eyman maintains, that 960 simply closes loopholes that have enabled legislators to evade the existing law, the effect would be to require a two-thirds vote for more legislation. Neither fund shifting nor the Colorado experience is even mentioned in the article.
To Sandeep Kaushik:
That's absolutely right, of course. I-747 hasn't yet been definitively tossed out but hasn't yet survived judicial scrutiny. I don't know how I wound up saying the opposite. The superior court decided five years after the fact that the voters hadn't known what they were voting for. (Even some writers who considered 747 a lousy law considered that a lousy decision.) We'll see what the Supreme Court says.
To David Sucher:
I agree. I didn't mean to imply that direct democracy inevitably produces conservative law. In addition to Sucher's list, it has produced public disclosure, public utility districts, and even a state income tax, passed by the people but thrown out by the state supreme court.
Comments:
Posted Mon, Aug 13, 8:50 a.m. inappropriate
I-747 Has Not Yet Survived Judicial Scrutiny: In your listing of previous Eyman initiatives, I noticed that you claim I-747, Eyman's one percent property tax limitation, has survived judicial scrutiny. That is incorrect (or at a minimum premature). In June 2006 a King County Superior Court judge threw out the initiative and an appeal of that decision was heard by the Washington State Supreme Court in May of this year. We continue to wait for the court's final ruling on that case.
Posted Mon, Aug 13, 11:10 a.m. inappropriate
ARTICLE UNCLEAR AS TO WHAT I-960 DOES AND DOESN'T DO: What I-960 does and doesn't do:
* The author wrote: "First would be a requirement for a two-thirds vote by each house of the state Legislature to pass any tax increase in taxes."
Not true, I-960 doesn't require 2/3's because it doesn't have to; it's already the law. I-960 simply closes the loophole that the Legislature uses to circumvent this law that voters imposed in 1993 and the Legislature imposed on themselves in 1998 and 2005.
* The author wrote: "Then there's a vote of the people on any tax increase that exceeded the state expenditure limit."
Not true, this is current law.
* Opponents claim I-960 requires 2/3's to transfer funds.
Not true. I-960 removes the broad term "raises state revenue," which for 13 years has been interpreted to mean "raises taxes", and replaces it with the words "raises taxes." The clear language and clear intent of I-960 is to ensure that when the Legislature takes an action that "raises taxes," they must abide by the law requiring 2/3's legislative approval. Frankly, we don't want high hurdles for transferring funds -- voters want funds transferred AWAY FROM ineffective, inefficient programs and INTO effective, efficient programs. That's what voters want from I-900's performance audits and from I-960.
* Opponents claim "similar" requirements in Colorado caused death and destruction.
We don't need to look at "similar" laws in other states; we have 13 years of positive experience with I-601 which has done a good job protecting taxpayers and is widely acknowledged by both Democrats and Republicans as reasonable public policy. The problem is the Legislature has put loophole after loophole into I-601's taxpayer protections. I-960 closes those loopholes.
I-960 is a smart, balanced, reasonable proposal that helps the Legislature follow the law and abide by our state Constitution. What's the counter-argument? That the Legislature should be able to violate the law and circumvent the Constitution? The voters don't support lawmakers' lawbreaking.
Posted by Tim Eyman, I-960 co-sponsor, http://www.VotersWantMoreChoices.com
Posted Mon, Aug 13, 1:23 p.m. inappropriate
More reportage, please: Tim Eyman spins a feel-good yarn--who doesn't want to be believe they can make government better by cutting their own taxes? I'd love to see some more skeptical reporting, though, on the objections being raised to Eyman's latest adventure in governance. Is there really enough money now in the state budget to adequately cover our needs--transportation, public health, disaster readiness, education? Does anyone think we're in great shape in these areas? Could tax-cuts-by-initiative be a factor in our declining infrastructure? If so, could the legislature be somewhat justified in seeking work-around solutions to unworkable formulas decreed by untouchable popular initiatives? Inquiring minds want to know!
Posted Mon, Aug 13, 1:40 p.m. inappropriate
Can you hear the people sing, singing a song of angry men...: Who among us is perfect? Certainly not Tim Eyman, and he'd be the first to acknowledge it. Be that as it may, he's been as good a friend us beleaguered taxpayers have had ever since ordinary guy Bruce Helm headed up a 1973-legislative pay raise rollback initiative and was derisively referred to by then Gov. Dan Evans as just a, "Furniture salesman from Ballard." Then as now, elites resent any among the great unwashed who cast rebellious eyes upon the Bastille of governmental chicanery.
The legislature routinely abuses its prerogatives (emergency clauses), courts routinely "discover" flaws in initiatives that went unnoticed for decades, and know-it-all pundits routinely scold the people for their unwillingness to roll over and be had. Any wonder most all of Eyman's initiatives pass so handily?
The progressive goal of the initiative process as a check against vested interests still holds only government is now the vested interest. At the time of Washington Statehood, government's reach into the lives and pocketbooks of the state's then approximately 350,000 citizens was infinitesimal compared to the nearly 6 million citizens of today (I looked for over an hour without success to find data on the 1890 state budget to do a per capita comparison between then and now). Government dwarfs so-called private vested interests and is distinguished from them by its ability to enforce its will upon us at the point of a gun, something not even James J. Hill and his Great Northern Railway then nor Halliburton today could ever do.
The wisdom of a check by the people upon powerful interests remains just as valid now as it did in 1889. The nature of who those powerful interests are has changed, that's all.
A perfect example of why "we the people" don't trust the powerful interests of government is the current state of transportation politics. Like a cage of rabid and very angry chimps, governmental and non-governmental factions fight fang and claw without regard to whether the people's interests are being served. They fight to get and waste our money.
The profligates and libertines who pitch our money around like so many booze hounds buying round after round for the house need occasionally to be tossed a bucket of cold electoral water and told to sober up, and that's the role of the initiative.
Interests such as the SEIU who sponsor court challenges to Eyman's latest initiative offering have zero credibility. As a former business agent/organizer for an SEIU local, I know that its goal isn't constitutional purity, legislative integrity, fiscal sanity or anything remotely close; it wants maximum access to public funds for its own purposes. Conjoined to government like a suckerfish on a whale, it derives its essence and energy from the very abuses these initiatives seek to either thwart or remedy.
Maybe it's time to aim a few initiatives at the overweening and grasping nature of public sector unions themselves given how they benefit from things such as the legislature declaring it a "public emergency," hence precluding a referendum to the people on the issue, to deny public employees the right to be asked whether they wish to have union dues used for political purposes. Tim Eyman…please take note!
Who is master and who are servants? These days, that's a damn hard question to answer. Those who should be servants see themselves as master, and whenever an initiative pops up that seeks to restore the natural order of things, the servants, accustomed to usurping the master's role, go berserk: Death and destruction, gloom and doom, the end of Western civilization as we know it. Never has come to pass, and it never will!
The people must retain their sovereignty, and in Washington, we do that via the initiative.
The Piper
Posted Mon, Aug 13, 3:34 p.m. inappropriate
Selfish: This initiative panders to the selfishness of some voters, just like other eyman initiatives.
It's a mystery why people are following this corrupt salesman. He lies to his own supporters...lying to the voters is easy from there.
Posted Mon, Aug 13, 5:51 p.m. inappropriate
SINCE 2005, OLYMPIA HAS CIRCUMVENTED THE CONSTITUTION 205 TIMES: Taxpayers are very, very well protected by our state Constitution. It guarantees the people the right to referendum, meaning if the people don't agree with a law passed by the Legislature, the people have a constitutionally-guaranteed right to gather signatures and put the issue on the ballot for the voters to decide. ANY law. This power deters Olympia from going over a cliff and passing laws they know to be opposed by the people.
But Olympia circumvents the Constitution and negates our rights every time they attach an emergency clause to a bill. Every time they do, they take away our constitutionally-guaranteed right to referendum. Since Gregoire's been Governor, they've "declared" 205 laws to be "emergencies." That means that on 205 occasions, the Legislature and the Governor circumvented the Constitution and removed the right of the people to have final say on those 205 laws. We were constitutionally-guaranteed the right to vote on those 205 laws and yet the Legislature shortcircuited that right 205 times.
The courts should stop them. But time and again, the courts have refused to rule against the Legislature, upholding "emergency" laws as absurd as building a sports stadium.
At a recent conference on initiatives, former state supreme court justice Phil "I agree with the Legislature that building a sports stadium is a legitimate exercise of emergency power" Talmadge said if the people don't like the Legislature's abuse/overuse/misuse of the emergency clause, they can vote out of office the 'bad' legislators.
I-960 helps the people do just that. I-960 alerts voters anytime Olympia imposes an "emergency" tax increase with two-pages in the general election voters pamphlet. It will list the tax increase's cost, but most importantly, it will list by name the legislators and how they voted. It'll include their position (Senator or Representative), full name, party affiliation, city they live in, office email address, and office phone number. We can't stop politicians from repealing our constitutionally-guaranteed rights, but we're entitled to know which politicians are doing it. As well as listing the costs and how legislators voted, the people are given the opportunity to register their opinion on this abuse with an advisory vote.
The goal of this provision in I-960 is to deter legislators from circumventing the Constitution. I-960's goal is to prod legislators to follow the Constitution and to not take away the people's constitutionally-guaranteed right to referendum.
Talmadge says to vote emergency-clause-abusing legislators out of office. That's fine, but we'd prefer that all legislators simply respect our rights and allow our state Constitution's checks-and-balances to work.
Tim Eyman, co-sponsor of I-960, http://www.VotersWantMoreChoices.com
Posted Mon, Aug 13, 7 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Selfish: Speaking of corrupt salesman, How is Ron Sims doing these days? Maybe we should ask his spokesman Sandeep "Liberal values are drinking and f#*!ing" about Tax to the Max. Oh wait, he's too busy working for RTID and Burner..I guess he does live by his values . Ron never met a dollar he wouldn't take from a developer right Hays? Which Developer to you work with? Vulcan? Yarrow Bay?
Posted Mon, Aug 13, 7:06 p.m. inappropriate
good for the goose, good for the gander: "We're still not sure where it will lead."
Well the initiative process leads to things like saving the Pike Place Market, to Shoreline Management, Growth Management (after a fashion), Abortion Rights, the CAP limitations in Seattle and probably more that I can't remember.
Sure conservatives use it, too, and it's fine to attack their proposals when you don't like them.
But I do find all this muttering against the initiative process itself from liberals to be unwise and short-sighted....mirror-image in a way to Republicans who want to give George Bush unlimited power without remembering that Hillary Clinton may be the next President.
Posted Mon, Aug 13, 8:56 p.m. inappropriate
I-960's opponents are gonna get slapped down again: Posted by Tim Eyman, I-960 co-sponsor
I-960's opponents are gonna get slapped down again on Sept 6th -- this time by the State Supreme Court
On Friday, July 13th, King County Superior Court judge Catherine Shaffer, a Gary Locke appointee, told the opponents of I-960 that their lawsuit was a joke.
During oral arguments, I-960's opponents talked about previous court rulings that supposedly supported their position. In response, Judge Shaffer interjected, "I'm not sure that the cases you cite really say what you say they stand for."
Talk about an understatement.
She went on to say "In your brief, you bring up the Constitution of Paraguay and I have to tell you that's not terribly persuasive."
Gluttons for punishment, opponents asked the State Supreme Court for an appeal. The oral arguments will be heard on Thursday, September 6th at 1:30 pm. We're confident the High Court will affirm Judge Shaffer's correct ruling -- the voters will get to vote on I-960 in November.
The State Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in 2005 that these kinds of anti-initiative lawsuits are illegal. That unanimous ruling -- Coppernol v. Reed -- made clear that voters have a First Amendment right to vote on initiatives.
This will be an opportunity for the High Court to send a message to all anti-initiative groups that they shouldn't go knocking on the court's door every time an initiative qualifies for the ballot. No one knows whether the voters will approve or reject any particular initiative and the courts shouldn't waste their limited time and resources ruling on measures the voters may not support. The voters have a right to vote and that right shouldn't be taken away just because a bunch of special interest groups don't trust the voters.
Posted Mon, Aug 13, 11:10 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Selfish: You know I don't work for a developer.
But maybe I should ask you that. You're clearly a logger, or whoring for an oil exec maybe. Who's paying you to for posting off-topic slime?
Posted Tue, Aug 14, 7:30 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Selfish: That's funny, in an earlier thread you said you did work for a developer, which is it? Probably Futerwise ( thousand friends of Ron Sims) or the Master Builders. I like the way you say "logger" and associate it with "whoring for an oil exec". it puts you and Sandeep into perspective. If you are out working for Sim's does that make him your pimp?
Posted Tue, Aug 14, 8:50 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Selfish: Don't lie. I never said that. I work for a contractor. Your accusation is like accusing a Boeing worker of working for an airline. Even then I often say the opposite of what my industry says, like "don't sprawl as much".
Speaking of integrity, you still haven't said what you do. Using your type of logic, I assume you're in the "extraction" industry, such as a logging our oil, because you're against Sims and therefore a planet rapist. Or maybe you're getting some of those eyman donations on the side?
The difference is I don't necessarily believe those scenarios, because using your type of logic would be foolish. (Though I should have clarified that in my last post.)
You're a cancer on this board. One of those people who spews venom on the internet rather than speaking intelligently or on-topic. You make false characterizations about people as a method of shutting them up rather than actually debating them. You make everyone who's less argumentative than I just avoid discussions. I wonder if you're one reason these boards haven't caught on more.
eyman is fair game because he got caught misusing funds and lying about it. In any other organization he'd have been fired in disgrace and possibly prosecuted. The guy is a criminal who got away with it. As for Sims, he's done nothing wrong other than disagree with you on policy. Or maybe he has...but the public hasn't heard about it.
Actually here's a scenario about your job that makes sense: Republican party operative. Your job is to trash the opposition. Admit it.
Posted Tue, Aug 14, 9:56 a.m. inappropriate
RE: good for the goose, good for the gander: I agree with this sentiment. Let Eyeman's initiatives win or lose on their own merits.
Undermining the voted will of the people is NOT a good thing.
Posted Tue, Aug 14, 10:35 a.m. inappropriate
RE: good for the goose, good for the gander: It's fine that we have initiatives and I wouldn't change much. We should do something to ensure the integrity of the signature process, which is too dominated by big donors rather than grassroots.
But eyman's initiatives don't win on their merits. They win largely on soundbites. They take advantage of the fact that many voters vote based on only superficial understanding of the measure. That's why ballot titles are debated so much. The "cover page" matters because many voters don't open the book.
The same goes for any measure by anyone. eyeman is just better than most at exploiting it.
Posted Tue, Aug 14, 2:20 p.m. inappropriate
RE: good for the goose, good for the gander: Oh, please! The people are occasionally wrong, but they're not stupid!
We have good instincts and a visceral understanding of when we're getting screwed. And Tim Eyman simply offers us the occasional vehicle by which to act on those instincts and articulate that understanding. He's willing to put his proposals to a democratic vote of those in whom reside ultimate sovereignty, whereas the elites - including those who contend voters don't open the book - deride us as simpletons and gullible rubes!
Again...the initiative process offers a unique check on arrogant special interests. These days, big government and all who suckle at its teats are the arrogant special interests. Hell, if they had there way, we wouldn't be able to afford the cake they tell us to go eat!
The Piper
Posted Tue, Aug 14, 3:58 p.m. inappropriate
RE: good for the goose, good for the gander: Of course they're not stupid. They simply haven't dug into the nuances of what they're voting for in most cases.
All political professionals know this. And all politicians (and initiative writers) publicly pretend they don't. That's because politicians know the value of pandering to voters' self-image.
Voters aren't any more impartial or fair than elected officials, typically. Many voters act more in self-interest than they do in public interest. This is especially true on tax issues.
Posted Tue, Aug 14, 5:12 p.m. inappropriate
RE: good for the goose, good for the gander: Of course voters act in self-interest; free people always act in their self-interest becuase that's what makes them free. The people's self interest IS the public interest. Any claim to the contrary spits in the face of the essence of freedom, liberty, and the democratic process.
Initiatives by their very nature are an expression of the people's self-interrest as a check against vested interests.
It's a refuge of scoundrals to attempt to shame the people with guilt trips when they go against their masters. Accusing them of being ill-informed or not digging into nuances is elitist and always trotted out whenever the people tell the elites to shove it sideways.
And it's no better to say they're not stupid on the one hand, but then accuse them of being lazy on the other. That hair don't split!
High taxes and wasteful spending aren't the natural order of the universe, and the so-called "experts" who claim otherwise and know better than us hicks in the sticks must, from time to time, get their ego-bloated and overly large heads handed to them so they don't forget who's boss.
If, as you say, politicians pander, then why is it bad when the people do a little initiative push-back?
The Piper
Posted Tue, Aug 14, 7:43 p.m. inappropriate
RE: good for the goose, good for the gander: I thought it was the refuge of scoundrels to worry more about their own pocketbooks than about the common good.
The common good is more than the sum of every individual's self-interest. It's also the good of what doesn't directly impact ourselves, or any of us. Stuff like the protection of ecosystems, which don't vote. And of the unpopular. Luckily we have constitutions (and sometimes elected officials) to protect what's right but inconvenient for voters acting in their own self-interest.
Posted Tue, Aug 14, 11:38 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Selfish: Wow Hays just because you love Ron Sims and High density development doesn't mean everyone that disagrees with you is out to get you, a "logger" or a Republican Operative. I stand corrected you did state you "Worked for a General Contractor" back on August 8th, not a developer. A cancer? Really? Or am I simply someone who recognizes the Ron Sims is not the be all end all that some make him out to be. Your devotion to Sims is admirable, misplaced but admirable. My concerns are with Mr. Sims and his official actions as Executive not with his political party. Your willingness to acuse someone of being a "Republican" would indicate that you would be a "Democrat" with a reactionary bent. One can only hope you will never hold any position of public responsibility if this is an example of how you would react.
I doubt that I could be a reason these board haven't caught on more, you would have to address your concerns about that to the editorial staff.
Posted Tue, Aug 14, 11:49 p.m. inappropriate
RE: good for the goose, good for the gander: My youngest son is a Marine Lance Corporal stationed in Okinawa. For sometime, he's had the following quote on every one of his emails:
"There is something more horrible than hoodlums, churls and vipers, and that is knaves with moral justification for their cause." -Thomas Moore [1779-1852]
While the language is florid, the point is valid: beware scoundrals who claim they know better what's good for you than you; their goal isn't public good, it's their own.
Who decides this imperious "common good" that's greater than the sum of the people? Where is it written that your opinion or mine, for that matter, has some moral or ethical purity qualifying it to trump the collective voice of the people? What divine right gives anyone the authority to claim their point of view supercedes that of the people?
Jefferson's words in the Declaration of Independence are instructive:
"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
In a democracy, sovereignty is vested in the people. Following in Jefferson's footsteps, the Washington State Constitution says, In Article I, Section 1:
"POLITICAL POWER. All political power is inherent in the people, and governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and are established to protect and maintain individual rights."
When the governed refuse to give their consent, it doesn't matter what the ecosystem says - people have rights, trees and rocks don't.
Of course, it is in my self-interest to ensure that the rights of all are protected, since we're all in the boat of democracy together. The rights of the majority are safe only when the rights of the minority are safeguarded.
Self-interest includes quality of life, community, love of neighbor, and other values. Ask those who serve in the military or any veteran why he or she joined and served.
Inherent in self-interest is balancing rights and responsibilities. When the people, via the initiative process, engage in that process, far be it for any smug know-it-all to chide them for their selfishness. The tax dollars politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. and Olympia spend belong to US not THEM. Too often this axiomatic and really quite simple absolute truth is lost on them. No wonder they squeal like stuck pigs when, ballot box pitch forks and initiative torches in hand, we stage electoral rebellions now and again?
It's never envisioned in a democratic society that it's the responsibility of elected officials to "protect what's right but inconvenient for voters acting in their own self-interest." When the people, through the initiative process, exercise their inherent sovereignty, elected officials must either accept the people's will or leave.
Edmund Burke's famous dictum, "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion," still envisions that the representative who exercises judgment contrary to the will of the people does so at his or her risk and peril.
Politicians are panderers by nature, and they slobber all over themselves to bestow all sorts of largesse upon us and tell us how good it is that we rely upon them since they're so much smarter than we are. Whenever that happens, the best thing that "we the people" can do is keep one hand upon our wallets, and the other shoving the panderers back where they belong.
The Piper
Posted Wed, Aug 15, 9:03 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Selfish: So you can make wild guesses about what other people do for a living, and what their motivations are, and others can't do the same to you?
You still haven't said who you work for. Hypocrite.
Posted Wed, Aug 15, 9:05 a.m. inappropriate
RE: good for the goose, good for the gander: Scoundrels also take refuge in deep intellectual arguments to justify their self-interest.
Posted Wed, Aug 15, 10:06 a.m. inappropriate
RE: good for the goose, good for the gander: Freedom, liberty, and my right to my property aren't deep intellectual arguments; to me, they're living, working, breathing realities!
The bottom, bottom, bottom line? What's mine is mine and yours, yours. I object to any point of view bottomed in the notion that what's mine is yours and somehow I'm morally, ethically or mentally deficient for not acceding to your wishes to hand what's mine over to you so that you can use it as you, my obvious moral, ethical, and intellectual better, see fit.
No law says you can't turn over as much of your own personal stash to the gub'mint man as you wish. In fact, if you're so convinced of the rightness of your cause, why not turn it all over? Wouldn't such an act be the logical extension of your analysis and argument?
Call me a scoundrel all you wish - many do, many do not - but remember even us scoundrels are entitled to vote on initiatives, and, per the results to date on Eyman-sponsored intitiatives, we are in the majority. Welcome to democracy.
The Piper
Posted Wed, Aug 15, 5:24 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Selfish: Hays all you have said is that you work for a General Contractor ...Gee that's specific , I really don't care who you work for or what you do for them. But since you ask I work for a City. Happy? I doubt it.
Posted Fri, Feb 1, 7:35 p.m. inappropriate
The will of the people is always unconstitutional!: When will legislators realize that the will of the people matters most. It's interesting how our legislators have passed unconstitutional bills. But, the rules suddenly change when the voters get involved! Does anyone know that once an initiative gets passed, the cities and counties hire overpriced attorneys to sue the voters (like Tom Ahearn) for voting on initiatives like I-695? It's corruption at it's finest. http://battlesoftim.com/btrep.htm
Posted Fri, Feb 15, 10:50 a.m. inappropriate
Lest they become tyrants...: If the legislature of this state finds itself at odds with the people of this state, perhaps they should look to limit themselves, and not the people of Washington. The initiative process is the absolute opposite of despotism in the political spectrum.
There are those here who are suggesting that the people can be misled by initiative summaries, or titles. The reality is that the initiative process is far less likely to mislead anyone than confusing legalese passed in committee meetings. Millions of voters must all be misled in the same way in order for initiatives to be misused. For the legislature to undermine the people they need not even ask. They can just word it vaguely and pass it. It requires only a few dozen legislators and voter inattention.
I have much greater faith in the initiative process than our legislature precisely because it asks the voters to read and vote on proposed law. The legislature on the other hand not only doesn't have to put itself before each individual to influence their lives, but in fact tries to conceal it's actions until "just the right moment"...
Look at how our legislators are railing against I-960 public disclosure. They claim it hampers good law because it puts the price tag out there before they can persuade the public that the result of their proposal is important. They claim it is bad for the voter to know what impact a law will have on them???
I'll take initiative over deceit every day of the week.
Posted Fri, Feb 15, 11:24 a.m. inappropriate
RE: good for the goose, good for the gander: RE: good for the goose, good for the gander
Posted by: mhays on Aug 15, 2007 9:05 AM
Scoundrels also take refuge in deep intellectual arguments to justify their self-interest.
Cap Am Says: Hays, if he had not put some meat on the bones of his argument you would likely accuse him of "oversimplification", so perhaps you could take the time to address the more salient points of his argument rather than criticizing it for being too "intellectual"....
It seems you think the voters are too simple to understand initiative summaries, and that anyone who uses words with more than three syllables is being too intellectual. I'm surprised at your anti-intellectual propensity since most liberals like to surroung themselves with the "bright and beautiful" and use Universities to recruit new accolytes.