By popular demand (I mean one or two readers e-mailed and asked me to do this), I give you my 2006 general election endorsements. These represent my opinions only and not necessarily those of any of the other editors or writers on Sound Politics.
General principles: I usually endorse Republicans over Democrats, unless the Republican is either (1) a criminal, (2) a major league asshat and/or (3) is endorsed by the Washington Education Association. Occasionally I'll endorse a Democrat who I know to be a good person, even if the Republican is acceptable and not of any of the aforementioned varieties of doofus. Republicans aren't perfect, but most Democrats want to tax your pants off and limit your freedoms. On ballot measures, I usually vote for anything that reduces the size, power and cost of government, lowers taxes and increases individual liberties. I usually vote against anything that increases the size, power and/or cost of government, raises taxes and/or reduces individual liberties. Not every ballot measure can be broken down that starkly, but most can. It really is that simple.
United States Senator: Mike McGavick
(if you have any doubts at all about Maria Cantwell but can't bring yourself to vote for a Republican, then vote Bruce Guthrie)
Washington Supreme Court: Stephen Johnson
United States House of Representatives (by district):
1st: Larry Ishmael
2nd: Doug Roulstone
4th: Doc Hastings
5th: Cathy McMorris
7th: Steve Beren
8th: Dave Reichert
(I'm not making endorsements for the 3rd, 6th and 9th districts, simply because I don't know enough about the Republican candidates, not because I have any specific objection. But when in doubt, vote for the Republican).
Statewide Ballot Measures
I-920 (Estate Tax Repeal): YES. Our state's version of the estate tax is the most deplorable tax imaginable. It singles out a tiny percentage of the population (far too small to defend itself numerically at the ballot box) under a specious notion of fairness. Voting NO to uphold the estate tax is the moral equivalent of participating in a looting mob.
I-933 (Property Fairness): YES. If the people want to impose restrictions on property usage that are so severe as to reduce the value of the property, then the people should compensate the property owner. It's only fair.
I-937 (Wind energy boondoggle): NO. Utilities should use alternative and renewable energy sources when it's economical to do so, not in response to political mandates for boondoggles (in this case for the wind industry).
State Legislature
In most cases, as noted above, vote for the Republican.
The one Democrat I endorse is Sen. Tim Sheldon (D-35), a voice for common sense who can help move the Democrats back towards the center. This year vote for every incumbent Republicans for the Legislature, and vote for the Republican challenger by default, unless you know something I don't.
Specific Republican candidates that I want to highlight, by district:
26th: Jim Hines for Senate
30th: Renee Maher for Senate
38th: Kim Halvorson for House
45th: Toby Nixon for Senate, Jeff Possinger for House, Tim Lee for House
47th: MIke Riley for Senate, Donna Watts for House, Andrew Franz for House
48th: Luke Esser for Senate, Bret Olson for House
District Court Judge
Northeast District: Richard Pope
County Ballot Measure
Proposition 2: Sales Tax Increase for Buses: NO. We should be funding our buses through the taxes we're already paying for Sound Transit (buses are a more effective and efficient form of transportation than overpriced train boondoggles)
Seattle Ballot Measures
Referendum 1: Strip club regulation. Vote NO to repeal the "4-foot rule". It's a matter of law enforcement priorities. Seattle has too many serious crimes and too few police officers as it is. We should not distract our police officers from their core mission of keeping us safe from criminals by making them lounge around titty bars with measuring tapes.
Proposition 1: The Never-ending Transportation Tax; NO. Yes, we need to spend money to fix our streets, but the fiscally incontinent Mayor Greg Nickels should free up some of the money by trimming his bloated budget first. He should then come back with a reduced proposal.
I-91: No tax subsidies to sports teams: YES.
I'm not a lawyer, but is anyone really telling people the details of this initiative?
I live near Redmond Ridge and Trilogy, both approved after Jan. 1, 1996. I-933 could allow Quadrant Homes (Weyerhaeuser) to demand the right to develop the hundreds of acres they agreed to set aside as a condition of the massive upzoning King County gave them that allowed 4,000 homes contructed on several hundred acres of land that was zoned rural at 1 home per 5 acres.
Anything done since January 1, 1996 can be challenged and if no one steps up to defend against those challenges, and certain governments would really have to be pushed to spend limited revenues to fight them all, everything done in the realm of land use regulation and development agreements for the last 10+ years could be successfully challenged and thrown out.
Critics are right about the vagueness of this initiative. It could hand land use policy to developers and literally allow the growth industry to call the shots, regardless of any zoning or other regulations imposed since Jan. 1, 1996 to protect quality of life.
Any law can be exploited if it is not written to specifically address any situation. I-933 appears to me to be insanely vague in its wording, and the last thing I want to see is an initiative that places decisions with judges who have shown themselves to act far too often in their own self-interest in siding with powerful special interests.
Here are some of the vague stipulations in I-933. While I agree that government takings have been a significant problem in the rural areas, please think about how this initiative can be exploited in the suburban and urban areas to damage quality of life that benefits from changes to zoning and regulations imposed since Jan. 1, 1996?
From the initiative:
(b) "Damaging the use or value" means to prohibit or restrict the use of private property to obtain benefit to the public the cost of which in all fairness and justice should be borne by the public as a whole, and includes, but is not limited to:
(i) Prohibiting or restricting any use or size, scope, or intensity of any use legally existing or permitted as of January 1, 1996;
(v) Requiring a portion of property to be left in its natural state or without beneficial use to its owner, unless necessary to prevent immediate harm to human health and safety; or
(vi) Prohibiting maintenance or removal of trees or vegetation.
Call it the ambulance chaser test....all they have to do is seek out land owners who might be affected and latch on like a parasite. However this hasn't been the case- as it was with liability reform in medical malpractice.
Posted by: Andy on October 26, 2006 01:18 PMI think I-933 in it's current form, or any future form, would need to pass in order to wake up our government and convince them that eminent domain doesn't just mean physically taking our property away. If this goes down in defeat by a wide margin it will embolden our legislature to continue to take away our rights at an even faster pace.
Posted by: Doug on October 26, 2006 01:21 PMAlso, Michael Messmore is the Republican candidate for congress in the 3rd district. He is a conservative who wants to secure our borders, enforce laws on immigration, repeal the death tax & maintain a strong, well-equipped military. He's pro-life & for keeping marriage between 1 man & 1 woman. He's also a "good" man, but he has a platform that matches up to his words.
Posted by: Susu on October 26, 2006 01:34 PMWhich ever way you look at it, it is a transfer of private property to the public. There should be compensation for that. It is protecting landowners, not developers, although developers are landowners too.
It is like rent control - the public votes for it and apartment owners pay for it.
Posted by: Right said Fred on October 26, 2006 01:36 PMThe other reasons regarding other property besides real estate and no public nuisance exemption sealed the deal for me.
Posted by: Palouse on October 26, 2006 01:47 PMHowever, just because they win doesn't mean they can slap up a development. The area must still be zoned for that use. It doesn't mean I can claim I could have built a business on my property and I could sue either. I have to show real damages in order to win in court.
933 is more complex than just saying I could hav or should have and then get money back.
The problem is the message about what 933 is about is not carried in the media because if people knew what it entailed, they would more likely vote in favor.
slightly off topic, but if Gregiore and company estimate it would cost some $12 billion to the state if enacted, then how much have they gouged people over this since 1996?
Posted by: Ken on October 26, 2006 01:52 PMPalouse - you have a point that it should only affect regulation since purchased, as the price took into account the regulation. But then again, the previous owner has a claim for reduced sales price due to the government. As far as the net cost, it would be a wash. I933 puts (probably inadvertently) the burden of previous owners to go after current owners for their loss instead of the government.
Posted by: Right said Fred on October 26, 2006 02:17 PMI'm sorry, but I can't trust the courts in the state to follow any logic or do anything for the right reasons. This initiative will free developers to do anything they want unless citizens and communities organize and invest a lot of money in what all to often are futile attempts to get the courts to uphold the law.
Andy,
I don't believe I-933 will cause major lawsuits, but lawsuits are what would be required to get the courts to interpret the vagueness within this initiative, and given my comments to Doug, I don't trust the courts to follow the "preceived" intent behind the Initiative like they would if it had been adopted by the Legislature. I'm not ready to put land use regulation in the hands of judges beholding to campaign contributors or independent expenditures on campaign ads that can defeat them.
Ken,
You may belive that I-933 is complex, but given what it is trying to do it is grossly simplistic. It may have been intended to help farmers and others in the rural area that are being screwed by government regulation, but with the broad definition of damage and the retroactive aspect of it going back nearly 11 years, this could be a disaster to quality of life and government's ability to balance property rights against quality of life and the need to protect neighborhoods and community from irresponsible and undesired growth.
Posted by: MJC on October 26, 2006 02:29 PMVoting no on I-937 is a no-brainer. Excluding hydropower as a renewable energy source is ridiculous.
Posted by: Palouse on October 26, 2006 03:16 PMGO TO: www.messmore.com and see why you should.
Kudos for endorsing Sen. Tim Sheldon (my favorite (D). Even though I am active in my local County (R) party, I would definitely vote for Sen. Tim if I was in his district.
Now: My # 1 race in this election:
Vote YES on I-933.
I won't take the time or space to repeat everything here, but my long reply on Postman's blog to his ''Group backing I-933 had "no legal standing to operate"'' thread seems to have helped ignite a minor firestorm of comments (at least it picked up after me).
I invite interested readers to visit:
http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/davidpostman/
The 933 thread is about one-third of the way down the list, as of 21:00 Thursday evening.
See also the YES on I-933 website:
http://www.propertyfairness.com/
All 25 WA County Farm Bureaus (made up of real famers and ranchers), the WA State Republican Party, and Dino Rossi have endorsed I-933.
Just ONE of many factoids:
Before Measure 37 passed in OR, the left-wing big-government types were screaming about how just the ADMINISTRATION of Measure 37 would cost $344 million a year. Actual cost ??.. About $3 million a year; i.e.:
The lefties were only off by about 10,000 percent.
Also Stefan, what about HJR 4223 to increase the property tax exemption from $3K to $15K for Head of Household? I think that is a YES.
Also for Tacoma residents, Vote no on Prop 1. Like Seattle, we should not be funding roads with extra funds. The City should be spending it's tax dollars wisely and prioritizing for roads and other critical services first, before art programs and other social services and liberal nonsense. Vote no to encourage the city to be more fiscally responsible.
I don't really know what to say about Norm Dicks, but it doesn't matter, he's going to get re-elected. He's done a good job of being a below the radar Democrat. So he's largely escaped widespread condemnation. And he does do some good. We had a problem on Fox Island with the Navy Lab a while back, and Dicks helped out.
Anyway, that's my .02 cents from the South.
A final rule of thumb, when in doubt, vote the opposite of socialist David Goldstein.
Posted by: Jeff B. on October 26, 2006 11:08 PMThe BS in this state is just tooo much....
33% property tax hikes each year for the last 30 years is a bit much
Posted by: GS on October 27, 2006 04:36 AMFor the 6th Congressional District, the Democrat is Norm Dicks. The Republican is "who cares." I don't mean to sound mean, but this is a race where there hasn't been a serious Republican Challenger for decades (basically since Dicks took office). Dicks learned well from Maggie and brings home the bacon big time. Being that so much of the district relies on the Military. It would be foolish to give up Dicks seniority on these matters. It would also be harmful to the nation. The only way for Republicans to challenge would be for someone to come into the district with as much experience and political pull as Norm. Norm never gets too far to the extreme and knows what is important to the district. Like I said, he learned very well from Maggie.
As far as your endorsements on initiative, I can't support your 933 stand. The initiative is too confusing and while the idea may be sound. I would rather vote no and say try again with a clearer initiative than vote for something that I may regret later.
As far as the stadium vote, I don't get to vote on it, but if I did, I wouldn't vote for it. While you may not care for the Sonics (I don't really care), but long term this vote could have a lot of hidden problems that couldn't be overturned later. I do believe that sports teams are an economic impact to the city and region and pull in more revenue than they extract. Plus, I would much rather have a sports team around than say the opera or theater. That's just me.
Posted by: tc on October 27, 2006 11:49 AMThose facts being outted, to me this gets back to the simple issue of theft. If the government, by simple fiat, takes your property or prevents you from using it (while you still make the payments and pay taxes) that is worse than stealing it outright and they need to pay the owner for it. Not stopping them with 933 will only make things worse for any owner of property, no matter how big or small. If you think you are immune, it’s only a question of time until they get to you.
1. “It is Vague”. By that logic, should we also repeal the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution? (“…nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”) Sounds like an “unfunded mandate” to me... Maybe the anti 933 group should mount a campaign to repeal the 5th Amendment as “too vague, goes too far, promotes irresponsible development”.
2. “Irresponsible Development”. For most of our history, Washington citizens had the freedom to use their property in any way that did not hurt their neighbors. Many of our cities and neighborhoods were developed during that time. Was the development of Queen Anne irresponsible development? What about Pioneer Square, or Capitol Hill?
3. “Goes Too Far”. Yes, reasonable zoning laws and limited regulation of property uses are important. However, am I the only one who sees how much liberty we’ve lost when I hear the anti-933 camp say that 933 is bad because it will make land owners feel like they can use their property any way they want?
I’m supporting 933 for the following reasons:
1. “Protects Basic Civil Rights” I-933 is about protecting individual civil rights from trampling by the majority. In America individual civil rights are protected, even if doing so is unpopular with the majority. The individual right against warrantless searches is protected even at the expense of the majority interest in public safety. The individual right to free speech is protected even if what is said offends the majority. Property rights are also basic individual rights that must be protected from the whims of the majority. I-933 does that.
2. “Will Make Government Think Before Taking” Today, government doesn’t need to think about how a new law will affect your property unless you’re left with “no reasonable use”. Today, it can set aside large swaths of your property as off-limits. Then, it can decide to double or triple these no-touch zones at any time, often based on generic studies by people who have never seen your property.
Without I-933, government is free to take the majority of your property by regulation without regard for the impact on you. That’s unfair. I-933 is a reasonable way to restore balance to property regulation. Without I-933, government can regulate away 90% of your property uses without thinking about the effect on you.
I-933 is a reasonable way to restore balance to property regulation.