Tuesday, February 23, 2010, 10:18 am
To: Governor Chris Gregoire
From: Tim Eyman
90% of Initiative 960 is/was the 2/3's vote requirement for tax increases - that was the big enchilada. You're going to sign the Democrats' bill (ESSB 6130) on Wednesday morning that suspends that requirement for this session and next session.
That really infuriates a lot of people.
But I-960 also addresses a very real problem in Olympia -- everything's an emergency. The emergency clause makes bills 'referendum proof' and so emergency clauses are going to be slapped on every tax increase bill you sign this session. The people's constitutionally guaranteed right to referendum will be taken away on every one of them.
I-960 anticipated this unfair situation and proposed a modest remedy: rather than stopping the indiscriminate overuse of the emergency clause, let's take one specific type of bill -- any tax increase -- and say that whenever the people's right to referendum is taken away by an emergency clause, at least let's give the voters a chance to express their opinion on it (with a non-binding advisory vote) and let's give the voters 2 pages in the voters pamphlet listing legislators' tax votes, their contact information, and the 10-year cost of the tax hikes.
In other words, I-960 provided transparency and a voice for the people.
Chris, you will take away the 2/3's vote requirement tomorrow morning (I'll see you there) but throw some crumbs to the peasants: veto the repeal of I-960's advisory vote on tax increases and the 2 pages in voters pamphlet with legislators tax votes and costs.
It's the very least you can do.
Tomorrow's Seattle Times editorial asks you to do the same thing.
Posted by Tim Eyman at February 23, 2010 04:56 PM | Email ThisActually, today is Tuesday, February 23, 2010 ...
(message from Eyman: it's been corrected - that's, Richard)
In any event, that is a reasonable proposal. Wonder whether the Governor has the guts to follow you advice?
How about we require all tax cut or tax limitiatives be required to name which programs and budgets will lose that funding?
Fair is fair, Tim.
Posted by: Joe Szilagyi on February 24, 2010 10:12 AMRequiring a supermajority means that nothing ever gets done..which is just how you anti-government fanatics like it.
Of course, the minority party in power (the GOP) LOVES the supermajority idea. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way.
Posted by: Proteus on February 24, 2010 10:25 AMVoters are justifiably outraged by the Democrats' arrogance.
Posted by: Tim Eyman on February 24, 2010 10:43 AMIt's hard-coded into the initiative/referendum system as a check and balance.
Get more Republicans elected or file an initiative to change the system.
You played a few winning hands, and now the other side has done the same. You lost this round.
Posted by: Joe Szilagyi on February 24, 2010 11:00 AMWe're "anti-government fanatics" like Proteus on a diet is an "anti-food fanatic."
Joe--this "nothing ever gets done with a supermajority" complaint is disingenuous. Things get done, they're just not the things YOU want done.
I also thought of something when you mentioned that.
I can't remember if it was the French economist Frederic Bastiat or the French observer Alexis de Tocqueville who, in "The Law" or "Democracy in America," respectively, noted that the nature of a democracy and checks and balances is such that people like yourself will become dissatisfied with how "nothing gets done" and will eventually look for a leader--whether it's a tyrannical State legislature or otherwise--to FORCE things that the people, or minority parties, don't want.
But hey--as long as YOU feel existentially fulfilled, and like you're part of something big, we'd all be more than happy to pay for it.
Posted by: gulliver on February 24, 2010 02:14 PMYou can't micromanage government. We do NOT live in a direct democracy. The job of the voters is to elect good, qualified people to govern...and then get out of their way, and let them do their job.
If we, the voters don't like the job they do, they don't get reelected. Simple!
In general, states with an "initiative" process (common out here in the West) are far more poorly run than those without. Its the initiative process that screwed up California (literally forcing the government into bankruptcy because real estate taxes were held down AND certain expenses (like prisons) were forced to remain).
And, I'll note, that it was YOUR I-695 Tim that gutted public transit and roads here in Puget Sound for almost a decade. Why are initiatives bad? Just interview your average American on the street about basic economics..or global trade, or even basic math. "Average" citizens aren't qualified to make the big decisions. Heck..most can barely do their taxes themselves..or understand the interest rate they pay on their credit cards!