Two eastern Snohomish County lawmakers are prepared to go the mat in support of safety improvements for Highway 2 in the coming legislative session. Both gentlemen have been fighting on this issue for years, scraping against the urban and suburban focus of the current legislature. And objectively, the state's failure to improve safety on the now routinely deadly stretch of highway in question is utterly inexcusable and a black eye on those currently in power.
At the same time, the issue has its own paradoxes. It's a case study in the challenge of minority members of a legislative body to force the majority to pay serious attention to problems outside the larger group's zone of familiarity. It's also a lesson in the difficulty of always standing on principle over pragmatism.
Legislators in the 39th District have been reliable votes against gas tax increases in recent years, which in fairness represents the will of the district. But an argument can be made that when Democrats were hunting for Republican votes in favor of the gas tax increases - with accompanying willingness to provide funding for projects in the home districts of those Republicans - it might have been wise for someone in the 39th to step up, vote for the increase, and secure at least part of the necessary funding for these long overdue safety improvements.
Former Sen. Dave Schmitt from the neighboring 44th District (Mill Creek, Lake Stevens, & Snohomish) made such a bargain. He was generally opposed to gas tax increases, but when offered funding for the nightmarish congestion along the Highway 9 corridor bedeviling his district he voted yes, to benefit his constituents. Of course, Schmitt lost his next election (for reasons more complex than that vote).
As I said, a paradox.
Posted by Eric Earling at January 01, 2008 04:27 PM | Email ThisSenator Mary Margaret Haugen (D-10) said that, explicitly. They are letting people die because Republicans didn't like their bill. It is not merely inexcuable: it is criminal.
You can argue that the 39th District reps should have "made a bargain," but only an amoral criminal would have required such a bargain. Blaming the 39th District for the lack of U.S. 2 funding is blaming the victim. It's Haugen and her cohorts who are 100 percent to blame.
Posted by: pudge on January 1, 2008 04:35 PMI know of a handful of legislators from the Kitsap and Mason county area who voted against the last gas tax increase, and their stated reason boiled down to a lack of funding for projects in their districts. In short, they voted against raising the taxes of their constituents when not enough of the new revenue would be spent for the benefit of those same constituents.
Ironically, the D's let some of their own "off the hook" for fear their constituents would vote them out if they voted in favor of the increase, but when the referendum votes were counted those constituents had approved the higher gas tax.
You say the legislators' votes represented the will of their constituents up in east Snohomish, so I suppose you've looked at the returns for the referendum.
Do you know if the legislators tended to vote against gas tax increases because the promised spending wasn't a good deal, or something else? Similarly, do you think the voters up there want something for nothing?
Posted by: Micajah on January 1, 2008 04:47 PMThere's plenty of reasons to vote against that gas tax. And none of them justify the response the Democrats gave: "fine, then I guess we'll just let some of your citizens die because you didn't agree with us."
Your question about "something for nothing" is meaningless. Nothing being discussed implies anyone would be getting something for nothing.
Posted by: pudge on January 1, 2008 04:53 PMIt's sorta like when John Kerry "voted for it before he voted against it." I actually am on record defending John Kerry for his infamous vote against the $87 billion for troops in Iraq: he made clear his vote was not against funding the troops, but against HOW the troops were funded, and that if he got his way (which was to increase taxes on the "rich"), then the troops would have been funded anyway.
That is perfectly reasonable, although, typical John Kerry, he turned a molehill into a mountain by ... well, talking about it.
Similarly, John McCain voted against the Bush tax cut, not because he didn't want to cut taxes, but because he wanted to see SPENDING cuts along with it. That is a Good Thing.
Again, I can't speak for any legislator in particular, but voting against the bill does not imply you are against the projects in the bill. I know to some people, that's how it works. but those people, frankly, are not very thoughtful, and people like them are the reason why government is filled with waste and corruption. HOW you do things matters a lot, sometimes as much or more than WHAT you are doing, and only in very rare cases -- true emergencies and such -- should a legislator feel obliged to vote for a bad bill just because it has some things in it that he wants.
We should have higher standards for our legislature than that.
Posted by: pudge on January 1, 2008 07:39 PMIt's damn time for new leadership in this state.
Posted by: GS on January 1, 2008 08:03 PMWhere road improvements can't be made immediately, speed limits should be lowered immediately. Since 45 mph is the speed at which a road is most efficient at moving cars, that would be a good speed to implement (or 50 maybe to be more politically feasable). Aggressive enforcement could pay for itself.
The DoT hates to reduce speeds because it gets in the way of it's concrete-laying agenda and doesn't spend money or inflate the DoT mission. (The current head of the DoT gets a pass in all my criticism of the agency. So far I've seen nothing but good things from her).
Thanks all, new left conservative #1
Posted by: new left conservative #1 on January 1, 2008 08:39 PMIf any public servant made a statement like that and meant it, the newspapers would be all over it with several follow-up stories. Can you imagine the political fallout if public safety were ignored because that area's legislators were of a minority party.
It was like the lazy and ineffective governor and mayor of Louisiana and New Orleans were when they shifted blame to Bush because he was a Republican.
Posted by: swatter on January 2, 2008 10:18 AMI know, it's something we don't WANT to believe, because it is just too ... base. We'd like to think no one would sacrifice lives for politics like that. But Haugen did.
Over the past decade, a credible program to build a new safe road has come together that's supported by most everybody, including GOP legislators from Walla Walla who supported the gas tax increases to pay for the new road.
The US 2 gameplan is essentially on the same glidepath. It'll take new revenue to pay for the $1 billion in improvements.
Pudge is wrong. The money doesn't exist right now.
Posted by: redflag on January 2, 2008 05:48 PMTo say we don't have $1 billion is, literally, incredible. The legislature simply chose to not spend it on our greatest needs.
Posted by: pudge on January 4, 2008 12:01 PM