Tag: Washington state

Categories
ballot access First Amendment rights political challengers

“Top Two” Goes South

Washington State has a long history of popular antagonism to political parties. For years, the state enforced an open primary, which meant that Republicans could vote in Democratic primaries and Democrats in Republican primaries. This was very popular, because it led to widespread strategic voting.

Well, that’s a euphemism. In open primaries, what you get is not mere strategic voting so much as sabotage. I have heard of Democrats and others boasting of voting in Republican primaries, for example, supporting Pat Robertson. Why? They believed Robertson to be unelectable, and hoped putting Robertson ahead would undercut the GOP in independent voters’ eyes, and make running against the party easier in the general election.Shooting numbered ducks.

Well, a few years ago that system was thrown out as unconstitutional, as an abridgment of free association rights.

But instead of allowing party members to select candidates, Washington State movers and shakers cooked up something else altogether. They set up a system wherein anyone could use a party’s label — even if that party’s members don’t know said candidate or despise him. Robbing parties of any control over candidates offered in their name is far worse on the very constitutional issue that nullified Washington’s traditional open primaries. Though Top Two has been legally challenged, the U.S. Supreme Court just this week refused to hear arguments.

The name “Top Two” comes from the fact that only the top two vote-​getters in this super-​open primary are on the general election ballot. The new system has completely removed minor party candidates from the general election ballot, when most folks vote.

Top Two has had the same impact in California. Arizona voters will decide the issue this November, on their ballot as Prop 121.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies political challengers

Enemies, Bedfellows

The Ron Paul 2012 campaign’s caucus-​state delegate strategy, discussed here before, aims to work around the candidate’s biggest hurdle: Republican voters. Though Ron Paul has a strong appeal to the young and to independents — constituencies needed to win against a sitting president — older, mainstream Republicans voters aren’t especially responsive to the maverick’s charms. Concentrating on selecting actual delegates at the caucuses, rather than the media-​hyped (and electorally meaningless) straw polls, is a clever strategy.

But what’s good for the goose is great for the gander. A video from Washington State shows a self-​proclaimed “mainstream” GOP activist offering caucus participants a slate of 31 delegates allegedly divided up amongst Romney, Santorum and Gingrich supporters, explicitly promoted to make sure that Ron Paulers don’t “take over” the party as they did, to his horror, in the Seattle area.

The Ron Paul supporters touting the video call it “election fraud.” Well, “caucus fraud” might be more to the point, considering that the slate offered was rejected by Rick Santorum’s  supporters as a con job. Since then Santorum folks and Paul folks have united. As one Santorum activist put it, “[i]n order for us to win the nomination in Tampa in August, we must deny Romney delegates to that convention. If … Romney receives 1,144 delegates before the national convention, it is all over for our campaign. That is the reason why the Senator himself directed us to coalition with the Ron Paul delegates to deny Romney any state delegates.”

Whether as a grand dialogue of ideas or a horse race, this time around the politics is interesting.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment initiative, referendum, and recall

Running Democracy’s Red Light

In the traffic snarl of political ideas, the liberating concept behind America seems as straightforward as the freeway: The people are the boss, with rights above government, and “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

The people have a green light to pursue happiness, provided that in their liberty they don’t diminish someone else’s equal right. Conversely, government is limited, facing red lights, and flashing yellows, from the people.

In theory.

Too often our judges and our “elected” representatives don’t get it. They shine red lights at the people. Just happened in Washington State on the issue of … well … red light cameras.

In dozens and dozens of public votes held across the country on the issue of red-​light cameras, voters have a 100 percent track record of saying “No,” to those Orwellian contraptions. That’s what happened in Mukilteo, Washington, thanks to a referendum pushed by Tim Eyman. It’s happened in numerous other Washington cities and localities.

So American Traffic Solutions, the company providing this cash-​creating “service,” formed a front group and sued to block local citizens from petitioning the issue to the ballot box.

In a narrow 5 – 4 decision, Justice Barbara Madsen wrote for the majority: “The legislature granted to local legislative bodies the exclusive power to legislate on the subject of the use and operation of automated traffic safety cameras. The legislature’s grant of authority does not extend to the electorate.”

Say, what? The very power granted by the legislature, and now denied the people in court, came from the people. The voters are the ultimate “legislative authority.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall political challengers

Another Protected Incumbent

It’s an impasse worthy of Joseph Heller. The author of the comic novel Catch-​22 provided us with the perfect term for a specific type of trap. In Heller’s story, you could only get out of the army if you were crazy — but if you asked to get out, that was proof of your sanity. Catch-22!

In Washington State, citizens may recall an elected official, but the recall effort must do two things: Prove to a court that the effort is not frivolous and abide by the state’s campaign finance laws.

Trouble is, for the court hearing you need an attorney. If your effort — like the current effort to recall controversial Pierce County Assessor-​Treasurer Dale Washam — is popular enough to get pro bono work from a major law firm, too bad.

Bad? Well, the campaign finance regulation applies to attorneys, too — and, according to some bureaucrats, the campaign finance limit of $800 per person limits not merely citizen contributors, but volunteering lawyers as well. They may not contribute more than $800 worth of labor to the client!

So, a recall is technically possible. But practically, it is not.

Another typical pro-​incumbency effect of campaign finance regulation.

In this case, the Institute for Justice has come to the rescue. They’ve sued: Farris et al. v. Seabrook et al. IJ has made it a mission to defend Americans thwarted by misguided campaign finance regulation.

Someone has to fight our Catch-22’s.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

A Fraudulent Anti-​Fraud Bill

The theory behind Washington State’s Senate Bill 5297 — now worming its way through Olympia — seems to be that the people can’t be trusted to legislate, so the more hurdles thrown up at the initiative process, the better.

But the bill itself shows just the opposite, revealing its legislative supporters as careless, heedless of facts, and nastily bigoted towards some folk and against others. 

The truth? Washington State has had only one known case of signature fraud. A Service Employees International Union official repeatedly just made up names and signatures.

She’s confessed and awaits sentencing. 

So why add SB 5297’s reporting requirements for signature gatherers? To stop frauds such as this?

Well, no. SB 5297 exempts union petitioners!

Par for the course. Politicians in not a few of the 24 states that have statewide initiative rights try such things, all the while talking about the evils of fraud.

The facts? After surveying public records, Citizens in Charge Foundation reported, last year in “Is the ‘F‑word’ Overused?”, that “cases of verified fraud or forgery are not pervasive in initiative or referendum petitions. Furthermore, many of the ‘reforms’ passed by state legislatures to address fraud have shown no positive results.”

Fortunately for Washingtonians, initiative activist Tim Eyman has bashed the bill and nearly every state newspaper, usually editorializing against Eyman, has instead lambasted the legislation. Citizens are rallying. Several legislators have stood against it, and taken away much of its teeth and claws. 

Now it’s time to kill the beast.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
local leaders national politics & policies

Persistence, Thy Name Is Eyman

Eyman

We haven’t had enough Tim Eyman.

I try to rotate the subjects of these Common Sense efforts, moving from freedom to democracy and back again, covering local and state issues as well as national and international ones.

But certain topics make regular returns. Like Tim Eyman. In Washington State, he’s evergreen.

He’s the citizen initiative guy. He keeps plugging away, writing initiatives, working to put them on the ballot, defending them against all comers.

His recurring theme? Lower taxes.

He recently filed an initiative to require a two-​thirds majority in the Evergreen State’s legislature to raise taxes.

He’s done it before. And Washington State citizens have voted this in, before. Four times.

Trouble is, the legislature can repeal any state initiative two years after enactment, by simple majority. Within the first two years, it takes a two thirds super-majority.

So Eyman is back on the horse, whip in hand, and says he’ll keep putting these initiatives before the voters. As many times as it takes.

He’s working on the current effort in case the legislature takes down the recently enacted I‑1053, like they did the three previous citizen-​enacted laws. If lawmakers don’t overturn this, he’ll wait until 2012 to reintroduce it. And he’ll keep this up until legislators at last understand: Citizens don’t have unlimited resources. Taxes come at a cost. Spending less is always an option.

You can’t keep a good man (or the voters) down.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.