State Sen. Ken Jacobsen (D-Seattle) told today's P-I that he is holding firm against SEIU demands, explaining that he is a "stiff-necked Scandinavian". Scandinavians aren't often said to be "stiff-necked". But as a member of the original "stiff-necked people", I recall the phrase was introduced in Exodus to refer to the Jews' resistance to God's will. Did Sen. Jacobsen really mean to imply that the SEIU is God-like?
In any event, I also see that Sen. Jacobsen has introduced a resolution to take away the people's Constitutional right to initiatives and referenda. I don't think Sen. Jacobsen is so much a stiff-necked Scandinavian as he is simply an old-fashioned Scandinavian monarchical absolutist.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at January 19, 2006 04:24 PM | Email This"..an amendment to Article II of the Constitution of the state of Washington by repealing section 1 thereof in its entirety;.."
SECTION 1 LEGISLATIVE POWERS, WHERE VESTED.
The legislative authority of the state of Washington shall be vested in the legislature, consisting of a senate and house of representatives, which shall be called the legislature of the state of Washington, but the people reserve to themselves the power to propose bills, laws, and to enact or reject the same at the polls, independent of the legislature, and also reserve power, at their own option, to approve or reject at the polls any act, item, Section, or part of any bill, act, or law passed by the legislature.
Hopefully this will have the same fate as last year - died in committee.
Posted by: SouthernRoots on January 19, 2006 04:52 PMThis proposed amendment makes no sense...not that I'd expect liberals to make sense, but still, this is strange even for them.
Posted by: Darth Dogbert on January 19, 2006 05:07 PMHere's the SEIU's goal, taken right from the column:
"Last year, when the push for the legislation began, the union itself also stood to gain -- the in-home child-care workers' vote to unionize was still pending.
In November, more than 3,000 workers voted to unionize. Since then, a total of about 5,000 have joined the union, though all in-home day-care workers could potentially benefit from collective bargaining rights.
Union spokeswoman Gretchen Donart said the proposal was intended to attract new members.
'Absolutely, we were very clear that this was our goal that they were to get a voice in how the (state subsidy) rates were set,' she said.
And the union is lobbying aggressively for the bill.
'Winning these workers the freedom to negotiate collectively with the state is the No. 1 priority of our local,' Donart said."
Think about this. Historically, the case for unions was that the owners of privately owned companies should share a larger portion of profits with the workers who, it was argued, "created" the profits. I disagree with that assertion, but never-the-less, it was embraced by the public and unionization grew tremendously in the 30s and 40s, along with the wages of mostly blue collar workers.
Now, we have day-care workers who are self-employed, but subsidized by tax dollars, unionizing in order to extort more tax money for themselves. This isn't about limiting capitalism, or labor's struggle to be compensated for sweat and blood from the profits of capitalists who simply invest and shop for the cheapest workers possible, reaping "obscene" profits that must be redistributed, in the name of fairness, to their workers.
There is no profit here. The collective bargaining power sought by the union is simply a way for the voice of the day care workers, and all other SEIU members, to amplify their voices beyond that which they and the rest of us already have - the right to vote for the legislators who enact the legislation that sets their subsidies and compensation. Its another example of the basic tenet of socialism - stealing is OK so long as the government does it and the loot is distributed to those who demonstrate the most need.
Why is this so hard to understand, or if its understood, why isn't eliminating this and other forms of socialism (passing a law that prohibits unionization of day care workers, for example) the primary focus of the republican party? Why does the party get so bogged down on social behavioral issues, so that people who understand the real evil that needs fighting have no party, other than the libertarian party, to fight for them? Because for us, our republican votes are almost always anti-democrat votes, so that things might not get worse, but they never get better.
Posted by: srogers on January 19, 2006 05:22 PMMaybe the bill isn't so bad after all - it would repeal the legislature. I'm more people would vote for that.
How "stiff-necked" can he be? This bill was introduced a year ago and they still didn't change it.
Seriously, we do elect people to represent us. However, if they choose to represent special interests instead, our only recourse is the referendum or the initiative.
Last session, the legislature tacked on the "emergency" clause on almost 100 bills, negating the referendum. Is this really what we voted for for representation? I doubt it.
Posted by: SouthernRoots on January 19, 2006 06:37 PMThis type of legislation belongs in Venezuela, Cuba, Iran or North Korea...
Posted by: KS on January 19, 2006 09:15 PMBut the arrogance of even TRYING to do this is fairly breathtaking....
Posted by: Methow Ken on January 19, 2006 09:35 PMMaybe the Senator is just being honest with the people - it's not like our voices matter, so why even put up the pretenses that they do. Take away the initiatives, the referendum, and the legislature, so that the enlightened few in Olympia and Seattle can lord over the state as they, in their infinite liberal wisdom, see fit.
Posted by: Darth Dogbert on January 19, 2006 09:59 PMI am more left than right in my politics and I disagee totally with old Ken,.
If it was not for the people, we would still be paying sale tax on food. NEVER FORGET THIS -- the legislature just whinned for years how the state would go bankrupt with out this big time tax. Bullpucky.
Think about family budgets in this era with amost 9 percent added on food and meds. WOULD BE - were it not by a vote of the people.
I have worked on inits. that fail -- but always appreciated that it was the only way to take our issue to a real vote of the people.
And winning ones -- ie. Medical Marijuana -- too hot for the legislature, passed big time by the very smart and right on public.
Good ideas can sit in the legislature for twenty years without even some debate or a hearing.
Ken Kiddo -- you are more that stiff nedked, you are wrong headed on this one.
Posted by: R G B on January 20, 2006 05:27 AMKen talks fast and it was a little hard to keep up with him at first. So what were Ken's main reasons for this bill? In my words they are as follows:
1. Initiatives and referendums have the tendency to place unrealistic restrictions on how the lawmakers in Olympia do their business. Passing the initiative to reduce car tabs to $30 made it harder for the legislators to deal with transportation problems.
2. Lawmaking ought to be left up to the professional lawmakers - our elected representaives. Ken said that he was one of the only republican senators in the state house. By republican, I think that he was referring to representative government. He is a Democrat by party affiliation. Trusting the public to vote on big issues directly through initiatives and referndums is just not right.
3. Several times, Ken mentioned Tim Eyeman (spelling?) and that Tim makes $200,000 per year in the initiative business. This seemed to be a big source of irritation to Ken. After all, not only is Tim maiking big money, he is making the job of the elected representatives in Olympia alot harder by getting individual voters involved in big issues such as taxes.
Ken also has a problem with initiative organizers payng people to gather signatures for their initiatives. I brought up the recent initiative(or was it a referendum?) to repeal the gas tax and said that the signatures were gathered without paid help. Ken said that he wasn't so sure about that.
4. I mentioned to Ken that he is the only sponsor of his bill and that he has no co-sponsors. I asked him if anybody agrees with him on this bill. Ken said that he knows of 10-15 Senators for the bill and about the same number of Senators strongly opposed to it. I then asked if nobody else is stepping up to support it because it would prove to be unpopular with voters. Ken then said that if you do not like what he is doing in Olympia, then vote against him next election.
Ken said that this bill is in committe right now, but that he does not expect it to be approved by the committee.
Whew, those are the main points I remember from the phone call. I am not trying to misrepresent Senator Jacobsen in any way, and the above points are my interpretaion of what Ken said to me during our phone conversation.
Ken also said that he would be appearing on a radio show soon to talk about this bill. I did not catch which station or what time he would be speaking about this bill.
Posted by: Gary on January 20, 2006 10:41 AMIf he doesn't like people being paid for helping determine which laws we live under, does he advocate that he should not be taking a pay check either?
Posted by: fred on January 20, 2006 12:47 PMYou did a great service by 1. calling on him, and 2. reporting his responses. You might go one further and email him with a link to this page and an offer to clarify/amend as he sees fit.
While I don't see his position as outrageous, I do see it as disappointing. Disappointing in that he, like most legislators appear to be willfully ignorant of the "mood on the street".
He sees Eyeman as an obstacle - I see him as a natural consequence of failed leadership and lack of representation. If our leaders were responsive we wouldn't need Eyeman!
He thinks that there was some sort of nefarious dealings associated with the signature gathering effort for I-912? He's an idiot. Not only did I not get paid to gather signatures (which BTW, were offered up like panties at an Elvis concert ;'} but I contributed to money to the effort to help defray expenses.
Where there was underhanded machinations was with Doug McDonald and the WSDOT. He and his department (as well as other official state agencies) used public state funds to advocate against the initiative.
Of course, as a democrap, I wouldn't expect much from him, least of all honesty or sincerity....
Posted by: alphabet soup on January 20, 2006 01:10 PM