After the debacle of Washington’s gubernatorial election, URL’s (Unapologetic Republican Libertarians) such as myself have been getting the shaft from those who saw a mandate in an election won by less than 130 votes.
With both houses of our state legislature run by Democrats, the residents of this state have seen an increase in our tax rates with a measurable loss of our voice (read: representation).
Currently at the forefront of this loss was a gas tax increase that was shoved through under the guise of ‘Emergency Funding’ so that it couldn’t be struck down in the courts. The tax increase was sold as supposedly going to replacement of the Alaskan Way Viaduct (the road you see going across the front of Seattle’s downtown, damaged in our last earthquake) and the expansion of the 520 Floating Bridge (goes from Seattle’s north downtown section, across Lake Washington to cities such as Bellevue and Redmond, home of Microsoft).
One problem was that those were only two of over 100 other projects that the state had actually put on the ‘Emergency Funding’ bill, none of which are ‘Emergency’ repairs.
Another problem was that no one, anywhere, had any actually plans as to what was going to replace the Viaduct or added on to the 520 bridge so, even aside from the other 100+ projects that the state had on the menu, the planners could only estimate to within a couple billion (yes, with a B) dollars how much all of this was going to cost. We’re still arguing over whether the Viaduct will be replaced by a tunnel, a surface street or another viaduct.
Basically, what the state wanted was a blank check written to them from the taxpayers and even a goodly number of the state’s registered Democrats had a problem with that. After the waste was shown within the state’s Dept. of Transportation, a large number of folks where rightly pissed that the state took us for suckers. We have the fifth or sixth highest gas tax in the nation, yet we only measure around twentieth in actual transportation spending. Our roads suck and the social engineering freaks in the DOT, both state and county, have been trying to shove us into their mass transit programs, spending close to 50% of the tax money on those programs when only 5% actually ride the bus and light rail.
Shortly after the bill was signed by Barely-Governor Gregoire, the citizens rose up and cranked out the language of Initiative 912. In less than two months, more than twice the needed number of signatures were gathered. Not only that, but the signature error rate (doubles signatures/non-registered voters) were the lowest for any initiative that made it onto the ballot (I’m being vague here because I cannot remember the exact figures and don’t feel up to Googling them).
In the middle of all of this clamor to get the initiative on the ballot, two of Seattle’s right wing radio talk hosts, Kirby Wilber and John Carlson of KVI, were pushing this on a daily basis during their broadcast time. This pissed off the pro-gas tax/anti-912 people to no end.
The anti-912 groups include state bureaucrats who want to waste the tax money, large construction firms who want the money that these contracts will send them, the unions whose members will get the money from the construction companies contracts in hourly wages and ignorant lefties who reside in the western half of the state who can’t believe that everyone doesn’t want to be taxed more.
And since the state and corporate interests have more money than a group of citizens taking donations, they took the I-912 people to court and asked the judge to make the talk radio guys figure out how much their broadcast time was worth and make the I-912 group consider it a donation (you hopefully already heard about this a couple months back).
Needless to say, the judge did as the state wanted and Wilber’s and Carlson’s on-air speech was deemed to be not covered under the First Amendment and they were forced to figure out how much they had “donated� in talk time. They didn’t have to stop, they just had to track how much time they spent talking about it.
Strike One against the First Amendment.
Never mind that both of the local newspapers had, in total, written over a dozen anti-912 editorials (and ZERO for) in the same amount of time and that other TV and radio station’s hosts had spoken out for and against (mostly against) I-912, the judge didn’t care about that and focused on the KVI hosts only.
They appealed and lost. Strike Two against the First Amendment.
The anti-912 groups got their panties in such a bunch that they immediately went on the attack and started spreading the meme that those against the gas tax wanted anyone who drives on the Viaduct to be killed in the next earthquake.
Quite literally.
The whole issue became about “Safety� and the Viaduct and how it was going to fall down if a mouse farted within 500 yards of the structure, killing anyone within a half mile, etc, etc.
Unfortunately for them, the people weren’t buying it. Take a look at this poll from near the end of September.
Yes or no on I-912?
52% – Yes
41% – No
7% – Undecided
Except for Asian Liberal Democrats, I-912 was a Yes all the way across the board.
Well, on and on it went until this last Monday.
On Monday afternoon, the folks from the state Public Disclosure Commision gave the guys at KVI a call to not so subtly remind them that Tuesday marked the ‘two weeks before the election’ point and that their free speech, now labeled as campaign contributions, had to stop.
Strike Three against the First Amendment. It no longer exists in Washington State.
On Monday Afternoon, Carlson used his three hours on the air to let his listeners know what he was told by the PDC. He gave out no phone numbers or email addresses, yet the PDC was so overwhelmed by the response from the voters that they seemed to lay off the two hosts. With backing from the station’s management, they have since talked about the subject without repercussions. The management publicly declared that any fines levied against the hosts will be paid for by the station.
So maybe the First isn’t out, but it is getting walked (on).
Our election day is November 8th so we’ll see how it goes.
The numbers have evened up a bit in recent surveys, but it still looks good for I-912 to pass. I have no doubt though that I-912 will suffer the same courtroom machinations that the flat rate car tabs initiative did a few years back; the anti-912 assholes will take it to court to try and get it stuck down on a technicality.
Hopefully, the state officials won’t be so dumb as to, once again, go directly against the will of the majority of the voters so that they can fleece us.
But they’ve done dumber things.
Your expectations of the eventual fate of I-912, should it pass, are probably on the money.
We have the same problem here in Oregon, where TWICE, the people have voted to require governments who write land-use regulations to compensate the owners of property for a reduction in the value of their property caused by such regulation. The last Initiative, Measure 37, was just thrown out by a single, liberal judge in Marion County, Oregon.
I propose a Constitutional amendment to both state’s Constitutions.
If a majority passes an Initiative, the Court must presume that it is law. If the Court finds that something in the language technically invalidates the Initiative, they may not throw out the law, they must suggest modifications to it that would make it “proper”. The State Supreme Court would then sit, en banc, within 60 days, and either approve the new language in the Initiative or replace it with their own. The test that must always be used would be that the intent of the voters to cause an effect could not be changed, only the enabling language.
When the Initiative and Referendum started, in Oregon, about a century ago, it was hailed as either the salvation of government (which, in those days of Empire, had a price-tag) or it’s demise. Only 10 States adopted some form of Initiative , although different kinds of Referendum to voters of Legislative measures is the norm in most states these days.
The problem has come about that these Initiatives have assumed some sort of second-class status nowadays, whereas they used to have premier status. There are few Initiatives that make it to law, then into effect without being challenged, as compared to a tiny fraction of Legislative (and Administrative) regulations.
The People are not empowered anymore. The last time this happened was in the early 1770’s. Even the poorest student of history knows what happened then: good men took their guns and ran the King’s minions back to London.
It may be time for that again.
See you at the range.