Rep. Toby Nixon emails:
latest word is that the Secretary of State supports all six of my amendments and the Democrats will accept them. We will work on a list maintenance bill for next year that will allow a more streamlined process for you and others to point out corrections that need to be made and get an affirmative response as to whether the correction is going to made, and if not, why not. This will cover such things as duplicates, incomplete information, clearly incorrect information, etc. I think we'll be able to have a pretty good challenge and maintenance system then, and can move on to fix other problems like voting machine certification, improving the signature matching process, and bringing the election contest statute into the 21st century (from the 19th).It's not over until the House votes on the amended bill and the Senate approves the House's amendments. But this is very encouraging. Kudos to Rep. Nixon, Secretary Reed and the Democrats for finding common ground and transforming what was a deeply flawed bill into one that moves us in the right direction and improves the integrity of the elections process. (The bill and Nixon's amendments are here)
UPDATE (5:34pm): SB 6362 is slated to reach the floor momentarily. Watch the action on TVW [click on the On Air button in the upper right].
UPDATE (6:30pm): It looks like this will get done upon return from the dinner break. Tune in at 7:30pm
UPDATE (8:00pm): The bill passed 94-4. All of Nixon's amendments included.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at March 02, 2006 05:14 PM | Email ThisProbably the best news in all of this is that there will most likely be a lot of sunlight on the midterm elections. It's going to be awfully hard for Logan to selectively count a close race, so that leaves many Republicans with a good chance.
Posted by: Jeff B. on March 2, 2006 06:01 PMI think Gregoire is gaining confidence in the job to the point where she believes she won't need cheating to win re-election.
Posted by: Mr. Cynical on March 2, 2006 07:20 PMA few more maneuvers like that will help the future look brighter, but as earlier stated - it will be a long uphill fight and will require more tenacity and cajones !
Posted by: KS on March 2, 2006 07:45 PMAwwwww.
Posted by: Erik on March 2, 2006 08:33 PMNixon seems to really be making a lot of noise lately. I wonder if he's got his eyes on bigger and better things...
Posted by: Cliff on March 2, 2006 08:50 PMWas there an Emergency Clause attached?
Or did they try to make it retroactive to just before the big bad republican challenge?
Posted by: GS on March 2, 2006 09:01 PM
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=6362
Posted by: dsajfkdsj on March 2, 2006 09:12 PMThis goes to show that sometimes, your voice does matter.
I credit Rep. Nixon and Stefan and whoever else were carefully watching this process and letting the people know what was happening. Keep up the good work! We are not in quite a tragedy as we have previously imagined, if things like this happen from time to time.
This is certainly not a time to relax the fight however.
Posted by: Jonathan Gardner on March 2, 2006 11:43 PMwhen you're done with that, Google up RTID;
http://www.rtid.dst.wa.us/
Notice that the "funding" page is unavailable.
For that,go back to the cached version;
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:-rSaBkWHB3AJ:www.rtid.dst.wa.us/+RTID&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
King County $7.6 billion
Pierce County $3.3 billion
Snohomish County $2.4 billion
Total
$13.2 billion
That page had been updated as of 1/30/06
Note that this $13.2 billion was somehow also left out of the Soviet Selective News Services when is was time to vote for I912.
The $hit parade has just gotten rolling.
Sen. Kohl-Welles continues to have concerns with this address challenge amendment, and says she's working with the Secretary of State and staff on further adjustments to it. The job is never done until both chambers pass the same identical language, the governor signs it (we'll have to work to keep her from vetoing out key sections), and you survive any court challenges.
I found these quotes that you might find interesting on "Queen Gregoire's" view of Taxes and specifically Ron Sim's Income tax proposal. I really found these amusing considering her recent tax hiking binge.
Christine Gregoire, Sims' main opposition in the September primary, issued a statement shortly after Sims made his announcement, saying his plan would put in place one of the highest state income taxes in the country, adding that the plan has no chance of passing.
According to a quote from the Queen herself:
"To start an income tax takes 2/3 of the House, 2/3 of the Senate and a majority vote in an election," Gregoire said in the statement. "I respect Ron's desire to improve our state, but a plan with no chance of passing is not a plan. We're coming out of a recession. We should be talking about jobs, not taxes."
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha
Posted by: GS on March 4, 2006 02:43 PM