King County Councilman Reagan Dunn in a Seattle Times guest editorial today: "Let the people decide who runs their elections", calling on his fellow councilmembers to put the I-25 charter change directly on this November's ballot:
Why would we want to wait until after the largest election in King County history -- the next presidential election -- to add accountability to our election system?Why indeed?
Meanwhile, Ron Sims's handpicked co-chairmen of the County Charter Review Commission, Mike Lowry and Lois North, are outraged that voters acted to place I-25 on the ballot, whining that "This vote essentially undermines our charter review responsibilities." North and Lowry call for maintaining the failed model of an appointed elections director. As Dunn points out, the Council already approved the concept of an elected Elections Director, the debate now is over timing. Sims' appointed commission co-chairs are arrogantly overstepping their mandate, trying to undermine both a voter initiative and a Council decision.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at July 26, 2007 12:14 PM | Email ThisTherefore, we feel it is important for the King County Council to present an alternative Charter amendment to the proposed Initiative 25: To maintain election functions under the management of the County Executive, and to set professional qualifications by Ordinance for those seeking this important position and the office.
This would promote the democratic checks and balances necessary for professional oversight and management, rather than a separately elected independent office with a separate budget and politically appointed staff who would be involved in campaigning, fundraising, and politics in the office. "
So, maintaining elections functions under the management of the county executive promotes democratic checks and balances?
I guess when they said democratic checks and balances they meant as in the democratic party!
Posted by: drw on July 26, 2007 12:56 PMCharter review members should be seen and not heard. They shouldn't become the issue.
But then, hey, we are talking about two of the most liberal and vociferous King County politicians over the last century. How can we expect different?
Posted by: swatter on July 26, 2007 01:14 PMLois North, former King County council member. Champion during the early days of Weyerhaeuser's Redmond Ridge and Trilogy. Both repeatedly ruled illegal by the state GMA Board until Governor Gary Locke appointed North to the Hearings Board just in time for a critical ruling on King County's shenanigans to subvert the law. Of course she saw no conflict in participating in a ruling for a project she had been integrally involved in getting started and supported in the early 1990s, and I'm sure she reversed the rulings from the previous GMA boards with a smile on her face, as well as Locke's and Sims', in finding with Weyerhauser.
What a surprise! Now she's a hand-picked "fixer" for Sims on the Charter Review commission. Another great surprise. NOT!
Along with Lowry they make the perfect pair of political cronies to usher in Sim's will.
Posted by: MJC on July 26, 2007 01:23 PMHow do I know? Look at the elections for judges...voters have no clue about that.
Why on earth would you want to have people vote for a position that, by definition, is something they are totally unqualified to select.
The judge voting here is awful...and you want to extend that exact kind of thing to other areas.
It would be horrible.
Posted by: Bill Anderson on July 26, 2007 02:22 PMBased on his track record, Ron Sims doesn't have a clue about how to select an elections director either. So it's time for a change.
Here's a fair deal -- If you don't believe you're qualified to elect an elections director, then don't vote for that office! But those of us who believe we're qualified will vote for that office. fair enough?
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on July 26, 2007 02:27 PMGive me a break, this initiative changes nothing. Elections will still be corrupt whether we elect the overseer or not.
Give me a break.
This old and mightily disproved canard again? Even the NYT debunked this baloney.
Tell us again how you are not a Koolaid drinking Kos sheep.
Son, you need to get out more.
On a more serious note...at least they'd be held accountable for the how the office conducted the business of the people. If Dean Logan faced elections in 2005..would there be ANY chance of his gettting elected?
The very thought that you could lose your job if it becomes a catastrophe (i.e. after 2004) would make the office more accountable assuming the person who filled it wanted to keep it.
What we do know is that Ron Sims appointing the position is more horrible than ANYTHING the voters could come up with. NO integrity, NO accountability equals NO faith in the election process.
Posted by: drw on July 26, 2007 03:53 PMActually, if there were a way that people would have to show competence before voting for a position like judge or elections director, that would be interesting. Though having neither elected is clearly preferable.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of voters vote without having (and certainly not demonstrating) any competence.
You don't like many of the judges in our state....and I don't blame you. Every time I vote for judges, I shudder to think the lack of ability I have to select good ones (and I take time to research) and extrapolate to the general (lazy) voting population who picks by name recognition, etc.
Think through your proposal. The one who raises the most money....creates the best ads (and name recognition) would likely be elected. How on earth would that be a good thing for people who want fair and honest elections. It's another bought/paid-for elected official.
Yes, both are bad. But electing a director or judge is the worse of the two evils..
Is it just Sims or will you have the same concerns after Sims?
Posted by: swatter on July 26, 2007 05:04 PMAnd this particular office will be sufficiently scrutinized it's unlikely that we'll get a fool. The last few people appointed to the job have been fools.
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on July 26, 2007 05:11 PMI want to see an itemized King County expense report, an itemized RTID spending report, an itemized unsound transit spending report, now that would be worth scrutinizing.....
Posted by: GS on July 26, 2007 06:39 PMYou're right, though, money buys a viable candidacy, and to get the money any candidate has to sell their souls and basically corrupt themselves before they're even elected. If they don't, no money and no viable candidacy, unless they have so much charm and appeal that they can appeal to the masses for funds. That says a lot about why we have such worthless people in government today.
A good friend of mine is running for office in Snohomish County and he is an honest guy with integrity. I asked him how he would raise money if he refused to sell his positions? He simply said that he was running because no one with integrity seemed to be in politics, and if he couldn't get elected running an honest campaign and refusing to sellout, at least he tried. He is running to make things better, and if that platform can't win or raise money, then it's all moot anyway.
Posted by: MJC on July 26, 2007 08:24 PM1) What is your standard for determining which public officials should be elected vs. appointed? Since you think most of Seattle, King County, and Washington government is incompetent, should every government employee be elected?
2) What do you see the campaign for elections director looking like? It doesn't matter what the candidates say about issues like all-mail voting or felon voting rights, because those issues are decided by officials who are already elected. Wouldn't the debates be over minutiae like whether to verify initiative petitions by sampling, or which voting hardware is best -- issues that you, and perhaps another 1% of the electorate, has the slightest clue about?
Posted by: Bruce on July 26, 2007 08:49 PMI think this just proves that Sims and the King County Elections department are totally biased.
Posted by: GS on July 26, 2007 09:44 PMI'm not Stefan, but here's my two cents.
There have been a couple of governments created recently with appointee-boards (Sound Transit, Seattle Monorail). RTID hopefully won't come on line, but it is one of those too. Those kinds of governments are harmful to people and society. Nothing like that ever should be allowed into power. As your question suggests, one big reason is that they have appointees setting government policy. Bad idea. No appointee-headed government should ever have taxing powers unless there are real, enforceable limits on how much taxes can be hauled in, and those are explained clearly up front. In that regard, ST is toxic mistake. SMP was just as bad, and RTID deserves to be relegated to the dust heap of history for that same reason.
I'd say only elected officials should have taxing authority.
What is truly nasty about ST and RTID and SMP is how there is so little discretion on how much those political appointees tax, while voters and taxpayers have NO means to elect the right people into power to decide how much to tax or how the taxes collected are spent.
So, I'd start my sort of what's kosher and what isn't with regard to the appointee-headed vs. elected-headed government choice by culling any government where voters can't directly decide who the people are who decide each year how much tax to rake in. Make sense, Bruce? How would you determine which type of government is best?
My criteria for elected vs. appointed? It makes sense to elect leading policy-makers, which the elections director is not. In general I think positions requiring professional competence are best appointed rather than elected, because an executive and the bureaucracy (using the non-disparaging definition of that term) is better equipped to choose wisely than the average voter. On the other hand, there is a good argument for separating the elections office from the political structure for elections integrity. I'm not sure how I'd weigh these factors.
Posted by: Bruce on July 27, 2007 12:03 AMNo, there are not. And since you asked the question, as opposed to trying to describe any limits on their taxing powers, I assume you know they don't operate under approptiate limits.
For example, if the ST2 measure passes, how much tax could ST collect over the next fifty years? I don't know, and I'm pretty sure you don't either. ST has not disclosed its tax collection projections.
In 2002 Joel Horn and Tom Carr and Dan Malarkey repeatedly said there'd be 23 years of SMP MVET. Three years later, that number jumped to 50 years.
Your turn Bruce. In 1996 voters approved a ballot proposition ST put forward. The voters approved ST spending certain amounts of taxes putting the system into place. Then when ST issued bonds in 1999 and 2005, it pledged to collect tens of billions more in taxes than the voters authorized. How would you argue ST's tax collection pledges were consistent with the tax spending limits in Sound Move? Didn't ST's board pledge to collect far more taxes than the voters authorized?
Posted by: saran stacy on July 27, 2007 07:29 AMI have been a believer of appointed auditors, prosecutors, assessors, etc. for several years. Stefan's exposure of the Sims' corrupt machine has given me pause. I am slowly revising my opinion on electeds vs. appointeds for some of these positions.
Currently, I have an elected assessor, who is basically, a former employee who got a pay raise. I wonder what would be the difference between that person working for the exec or working as an elected. I don't like the job the assessor is doing and the methods they use, including bullying to prevent an appeal. Eric Earling of SP just went through that exercise in Snohomish County.
But, my viewpoint is slowly morphing into having electeds for the various positions.
Posted by: swatter on July 27, 2007 07:39 AMWith regard to elections director, the position should be elected because of the judgement and policy decisions that individual will make bear on the core democratic process: the elections themselves.
You wrote this: "In general I think positions requiring professional competence are best appointed rather than elected," What government leadership position does not require professional competence? Take a County Executive - Ron Sims is in a position requiring professional competence. Should the County Executive be appointed? Same with County Councils and Mayors. Those positions require professional competence - all should be filled with appointees in your view?
How about Sound Transit, SMP and their ilk? How can you possibly argue appointees should lead those boards taxing powers? Experience has shown they can't deliver good results.
Posted by: saran stacy on July 27, 2007 07:42 AM
Oh, that's rich. What kind of moron are you? ST's board - APPOINTEES ALL - just approved the ST2 plan that will go on the ballot in the fall. OK, moron, read that and copy and paste all the taxpayer protection limits you can find in what the voters will be given to vote on.
I KNOW you won't respond to this, and I KNOW you won't post anything - BECAUSE THERE ARE NO TAXPAYER PROTECTION PROVISIONS IN THE ST2 PLAN, BRUCE.
Posted by: Brian Hutchings on July 27, 2007 09:20 AMMost reasonable arguement for electing the KC Elections Director is that in the event of bias or incompetency, we the people can fire him/her next time they're up for election.
The only other option I'd consider is that the party not in power select the Elections Director. By your logic, a GOP Elections Director should be able to provide the same unbiased transparency as a Dem appointed director. Just think about that Bruce.
Also beware of wanting to limit voting to just the annointed informed voter. You tread some dangerous ground when you do that...
Posted by: Jeffro on July 27, 2007 03:51 PMMost reasonable arguement for electing the KC Elections Director is that in the event of bias or incompetency, we the people can fire him/her next time they're up for election.
The only other option I'd consider is that the party not in power select the Elections Director. By your logic, a GOP Elections Director should be able to provide the same unbiased transparency as a Dem appointed director. Just think about that Bruce.
Also beware of wanting to limit voting to just the annointed informed voter. You tread some dangerous ground when you do that...
Posted by: Jeffro on July 27, 2007 03:52 PMMy personal favorite example of the lack of restriction on these boards is SMP's takings of private property:
http://soundpolitics.com/archives/005199.html
See especially comment #54. The actions of the SMP with regard to taking private property with the intent of making a profit on it clearly demonstrate an utter lack of personal integrity, and an overweening contempt for the rights of the individual.
Posted by: ewaggin on July 27, 2007 06:29 PMThanks for answering my questions!
I fear that your conclusion "And this particular office will be sufficiently scrutinized it's unlikely that we'll get a fool. The last few people appointed to the job have been fools." leaves me worried...
There is no way such candidates would be scrutinized by press and bloggers as much as national candidates (president, senators, representatives) or those for state wide offices (governor, attorney general, etc.) -- yet in all those cases, your comments in the past suggest there have been many fools elected to all of those positions at one time or another (and many currently holding such offices).
Electing an elections director would just add more to this pool. You don't like the appointees, vote out the appointers!
Posted by: Bill Anderson on July 29, 2007 11:37 AMA liitle historic prespective. Back in the sixties, there seemed to be a situation involving an elected county sheriff who was accussed of doing some dastedly things. It seems that the people of King County were also concerned about the practices of some other elected county offices.
A provision in the state constitution allowed the county to, following prescribed procedure, establsih a charter which would enable the county, in cetain circumstances, to substitute county policy and organization from that dictated by state law. One of the big issues was who should be elected and who should be appointed.
The general consensus at the time was that persons filling elected offices were in many cases simply persons who could get elected, ie., good at campaigning. On the other hand, if the office could be filled by appointment, the appointing officer could seek out the best qualified person for the job, who might otherwise not be able to get elected.
So the good people who constituted the charter development committee decided to eliminate all elected offices in the county except for the Council, which replaced the former county commissioners, the county executive, which replaced the appointed county administrator who was appointed by the commissioners (separation of the branches of government). The prosecuting attorney is a state prescribed office and not subject to a county charter. Then for some reason that I have never had adequately explained to me, they decided to also elect the county assessor. As a point of interest, one of the members of the charter committee was Lois North.
So then about eight years ago, who did the county council decide to remake an elected office by amending the charter? The very office that was primarily the basis for the appointed offices in the first place, the county sheriff. (You figure).
It appears to be a case of "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence."
Who performs the job better, the elected county auditors (the office that runs elections in other counties), or an appointed Records, Elections and Licesing Services Manager as in King County. Technically, the appointed manager should be the better qualified if the county executive doesn't make it a patronage appointment. But what keeps him from that?
By the way, the appointement of Dean Logan as REALS Manager was considered by many to be a choice selection. As a former elected officer in an adjoining county, having served as the head of the state elctions office of election offical training and certification, and then as the state elections director, who could possibly be more qualified for the job? What happened?
Stangely I'd bet that if he had run for the office initially, with his background and experience, he probably would have been elected. Would that have changed the outcome? I doubt it. It happens.
Bottom line: Will changing the REALS Manager's position to elected change the quality of the person who fills the office? It's a Hobson's choice. Good luck!
Posted by: Desert Rat on July 29, 2007 03:06 PMLiberalism is clearly a mental disorder which rears its ugly head loud and clear in the third most corrupt county (in a 2005 survey) in the USA. An elected County Auditor would be a step in the right direction, but Sims and his ilk of fearful elitist control freaks will mount a challenge with a deluge of propaganda and claptrap.
Posted by: KS on July 30, 2007 08:05 PM