The I-25 campaign met its fundraising goal today and announced that campaign chairman Toby Nixon will turn-in petitions tomorrow:
"We have collected over 74,000 signatures of King County voters in 90 days. We need 54,732 signatures to qualify the issue for the ballot. This strong show of support indicates that King County voters want the County Council to put this question on the November 2007 ballot" said Nixon.Thanks and congratulations to Toby Nixon and to everyone who signed a petition, donated money, gathered signatures and worked on the campaign. There's still more to do to win this in November. But tomorrow's turn-in is an enormous accomplishment. Many of you were part of it. Your contributions made the difference. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 18, 2007 05:56 PM | Email ThisKing County is the only county in Washington State where the County Executive appoints the top election official. Two bi-partisan commissions appointed after the 2004 governor's election recommended that King County change their charter to create an elected position for Director of Elections. The County Council declined to act.
It is amazing to me that the county council would flat out ignore the recomendations of EVERY commission AND deny the will of the people in getting this done in a timely fashion.
The fact the executive has refused to consider qualified candidates to fill the empty position, instead opting for a staffer committed to his way of fixing elections, should have been all the motivation the council needed to put this on the ballot themselves. Inexcusable.
Posted by: Coz on June 18, 2007 06:58 PMIf the folks in KC continue to elect her/him election after election then Yes, that person will be there forever.....
But just maybe, the voters can decide if the person is a viable candidate to fill the position.
That is the whole point of I-25, letting the Voters Decide.....
Posted by: chris on June 18, 2007 08:13 PMHowever, it may be one not annointed by our Capo di tutti Capi Ron Sims. And one 'uncollegial' officeholder in the Auditor's chair may turn out to be the first chink in the armor of the good Capo, and who knows but that the chink may be widened thereafter?
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on June 18, 2007 08:19 PMBy "the mindless but oh-so-sensitive urban Democrats of inner King County," you must mean the distinct majority in the County, and indeed the state. We'll have to do more than add an elected office to the bureaucracy if we're ever to govern again.
Ron Sims is not running again, but he's not the problem. He's always gotten elected by wide margins; we need to get some candidates, make some hard calls, and go to work on the hearts and minds of the voters.
Don't blame the people-- there's no future in politics for anyone who does that. Let's look at ourselves and figure out what we're not doing to win them over.
This initiative is a lateral move, it probably won't hurt anything-it'll go a little way to making us feel better (ain't nothing wrong with that) but we've got real work to do if we're ever to be taken seriously.
So, as I understand it, King Ron will retain the legal right to pee in his pants, but he may not be laughing when he does... do I have that roughly correct?
Posted by: TB on June 18, 2007 10:49 PMCharity don't hold your breath - The Reagan Wing is a lot of talk and very little action.
Posted by: Christal Summers on June 19, 2007 07:50 AM