Tuesday’s election generates hype

• Ballots must be postmarked no later than Tuesday.

• Ballots may be dropped off by 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Clark County Elections Office, 1408 Franklin St., or at a drive-up red ballot collection box one block east of the office.

• On Tuesday, there will be ballot drop-off locations from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. at select schools and churches. For a list, go to http://clarkvotes.org or see page 63 in the Voters’ Pamphlet.

• Any other questions? Call the county elections office at 360-397-2345 or email elections@clark.wa.gov.

Need to catch up?

• The Columbian’s 2014 election articles and editorial endorsements are compiled at www.columbian.com/election

• An online voters’ pamphlet, including an audio version, is at http://clarkvotes.org

Election night

• Results will be posted on www.columbian.com and www.clarkvotes.org by about 8:30 p.m.

• CVTV will start broadcasting at 8:30 p.m. from Clark College’s Gaiser Hall on Comcast Ch. 21 and live stream on www.cvtv.org

With two days remaining until ballots are due, Clark County’s 249,277 registered voters have some significant choices before them.

And while every election cycle comes touting the possibility of transformative change and the potential for new faces and ideas, there’s often a fair amount of hype. It’s easy to forgive voters, regularly tasked with sifting through the detritus of political rhetoric, for cynically viewing elections as exercises that are full of sound and fury.

Perhaps that’s why voter turnout is forecast at only 51 percent.

But this year, the hype might be warranted. Two prominent Clark County positions – sheriff and county commissioner – are up for grabs and voters will decide a measure that would change the county’s form of governance.

They’re joined by several other local races, including for treasurer, assessor and clerk. Add to that a half-dozen state House races and a congressional face-off between incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Democrat Bob Dingethal and what’s at stake comes into focus.

Home rule charter

The surprise of the election season may be the battle over a proposed home rule charter, which offers changes to how the county is governed.

Home rule charters are traditionally the province of political wonks. Rarely do discussions about revamping governance capture the imagination of the electorate.

The difference, political observers say, is that the debate over the charter is more broadly viewed as a discussion about quelling the power of two divisive county commissioners, Republicans Tom Mielke and David Madore.

Opponents of the charter — including the commissioners and, primarily, a number of politically involved county Republicans — argue a home rule charter would place too much power in the hands of a nonelected county manager.

The proposed charter calls for several changes, including hiring a county manager, electing county councilors by district, adding two new councilors — including a chairperson, who would be elected countywide — cutting their pay in half and adding an initiative and referendum process.

The two sides of the issue have spent thousands of dollars on mailers and video advertisements that have, at times, gotten personal.

A video advertisement produced by opponents of the charter features a voice-over that says, “The proposed charter is designed to shift power to an unelected, unaccountable county manager and away from you.”

Pro-charter factions produced a video that features a slow zoom out on a black-and-white photo of Madore’s face. “With just one vote, this man can raise your taxes, rezone your land and choose your garbage collector,” the announcer intones.

Home rule charter campaigns are “usually not this intense,” said Jim Moore, a political science professor and director of the Tom McCall Center for Policy Innovation at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore. “They usually don’t get caught up in personalities.”

Moore said charters are rarely exciting because they usually propose changes that are in step with how most cities operate. Vancouver, for example, has a nonelected professional city manager who runs daily operations, and reports to an elected city council, which sets the policies.

But opponents, including state Rep. Liz Pike, R-Camas, claim it would create the most “bureaucratic government on the West Coast.”

Despite their arguments, Moore said there’s no evidence that home rule charters strip power from elected council members.

“The evidence says that’s not true,” Moore said. “The Legislature passes the framework, and the manager is supposed to ensure that stuff gets done.”

Still, opponents of the charter say too little is known about what it would actually do.

Judith Anderson, a charter opponent, said the charter would separate citizens from their elected officials.

“The charter throws up a firewall,” she said. “Right now, (the commissioners) are directly accountable to the voters. They are charged with listening to constituents, coming up with solutions and implementing them.”

Nan Henriksen, former chairwoman of the board of freeholders that wrote the charter, said that’s misinformation. She said councilors would still be allowed to meet with the public and ask questions of county staff.

The charter can also be amended after five years, Henriksen said, meaning it isn’t inflexible.

County races

For the first time in 24 years, voter will choose a new sheriff: either retired Commander Chuck Atkins, a Republican, or Sgt. Shane Gardner, running as a nonpartisan. Whoever wins will succeed retiring Sheriff Garry Lucas, who hasn’t endorsed a candidate in the race.

Atkins has campaigned on a platform of experience, saying his decades of service in the sheriff’s office make him the clear choice for the position.

“As sheriff, you still need the person who sets the vision,” he said.

Gardner, meanwhile, has positioned himself as a candidate with new ideas. He has focused on a community-based policing plan, emphasizing improvements to mental health and building partnerships with nonprofit groups.

“I want to find ways to empty the jail instead of filling it up,” Gardner said.

The coming years will be ones of transformation for the sheriff’s office. The office is in the midst of transferring to a regional information network, as well as changing its radio system through the Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency.

The other up-for-grabs race is for county commissioner. Former Vancouver City Councilwoman Jeanne Stewart, a Republican, faces Craig Pridemore, a Democrat who previously served as a county commissioner and state senator. They’re running to fill the District 3 seat, which became vacant after Democrat Steve Stuart resigned earlier in the year. Madore and Mielke passed over Pridemore for an appointment to fill Stuart’s vacancy for several months, choosing Ed Barnes instead. Barnes chose not to run for the seat.

In recent weeks, the state Republican Party dumped $89,000 into Stewart’s campaign. Pridemore has found himself playing catch-up on the money front since then.

While the board of commissioners will maintain a Republican majority even if Pridemore wins, the two candidates have been defined by money and how it can be spent.

Pridemore’s campaign announced earlier in the week it would spend money on last-minute TV advertisements to counter Stewart’s television commercial, a sign that both candidates are parrying to get their messages out.

Todd Donovan, a political science professor at Western Washington University, said that the push for money in a local race isn’t uncommon, adding that he’s surprised more hadn’t been spent.

While Stewart has positioned herself as an independent thinker who’s never run on a party line before, her campaign commercial paints Pridemore as a liberal career politician.

Pridemore has bristled at those accusations, saying his platform is about improving economic development and rebuilding fractured relationships.

Hanging over the race is the charter. If voters pass it on Tuesday, the commissioners’ roles on the board would change.

Pridemore has come out in favor of the charter, while Stewart opposes it.

The other county races include the treasurer’s race, in which Republican Lauren Colas is running against 30-year incumbent Doug Lasher, a Democrat. For assessor, there’s first-term Republican Peter Van Nortwick against Ridgefield City Councilman Darren Wertz, also a Republican, who sits on the county’s Board of Equalization. First-term Prosecutor Tony Golik, a Democrat, is running against Republican Josephine Townsend. Finally, first-term incumbent Clerk Scott Weber, a Republican, is facing Democrat Deanna Pauli-Hammond.

State races

Though there are no state Senate races in the five districts that touch Clark County, control of the body is up for grabs — and along with it decisions on funding of the state’s public schools, a transportation package and climate change initiatives.

For two years, a conservative Majority Coalition Caucus has controlled the state Senate; two Democrats who caucus with the 23 Republican senators shifted the chamber’s power to Republicans.

Many believe the upper chamber will continue in Republican control, but there are about 10 competitive Senate races. If the chamber stays in Republican’s hands, state politics could mirror what’s happening at the federal level.

“One house of the legislative chamber (will limit) the governor’s ability to achieve his agenda and the Democratic Party’s ability to achieve its agenda as well,” said Carolyn Long, a political science professor at Washington State University Vancouver.

On the House side, it’s unlikely Republicans will gain enough seats to win a majority.

Looming over lawmakers this session will be how to fund the state’s public schools adequately. The state Supreme Court has ruled that public school funding must be greatly increased in order to fulfill the requirements of the state constitution.

Republicans have made it clear they are against raising taxes, no matter what.

Democrats including Rep. Jim Moeller, D-Vancouver and speaker pro tempore of the House, believe raising taxes is preferable over slashing services.

“What’s at stake at the state level is our finances; revenue in a nutshell,” Moeller said.

And there’s a reason California billionaire Tom Steyer is pouring money into the Senate races. If Democrats take control of the upper chamber, Gov. Jay Inslee has a better shot of passing some of his ambitious climate change legislation.

Sen. Ann Rivers, R-La Center, the Senate majority whip who is not up for re-election, likened the governor’s climate change agenda to “mowing the lawn while the house is burning down.”

“We have to prioritize,” she said.

“What’s at stake, from my perspective, is the Majority Coalition Caucus and all the good things we’ve been able to do, basically unwinding that,” Rivers said.

The future of a statewide transportation package will also depend on who controls the upper chamber. An $8 billion transportation package failed last year when the two parties could not agree on its terms.

In the House, the closest race is expected to be in the 17th District, where first-term Rep. Monica Stonier, D-Vancouver, won her last election by 140 votes. In the August primary, she finished behind GOP challenger Lynda Wilson, a former county Republican chairwoman who is well-connected in the business community.

“It’s a very competitive district, and that’s good for politics,” Long said. “We don’t like safe seats; we want two good candidates. But I don’t think we’re going to know by election night where that seat goes. I think it will go down to the wire like it did last cycle.”

Even if the district goes all GOP, it could change in two years.

“I think it’s still going to be a swing district,” Long said. “I don’t think (Republican Sen. Don) Benton is safe, if you look at his margin of victory last time.”

Congressional race

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Camas, is vying for her third term, with Democratic challenger Bob Dingethal hoping to oust her. Both candidates have presented positions throughout the campaign representing their party’s overall agenda.

Despite low overall approval ratings for Congress and some political wonks saying Dingethal is the best challenger to an incumbent member of Congress in the state this year, Herrera Beutler is expected to win re-election.

Most people still tend to think highly of their Congresswoman. Typically in a midterm election, members of the president’s party lose seats.

“If I were a voter in the 3rd Congressional District, I would ask if I’m more satisfied with Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler than I was with Congressman Brian Baird for five terms, because they have been able to see her policy for four years. That’s what they should ask themselves,” Long said.

Ballot measures

The day of the Marysville-Pilchuck High School shooting, proponents behind Initiative 594 released a statement on their website.

“It is up to all of us to come together and work to reduce gun violence,” the statement read.

Even before the most recent school shooting, the measure was leading in polls.

“Whenever you have an act of violence … there is greater support for some gun control measures, and of all the gun control measures out there, background checks are usually seen as the most popular,” Long said.

The measure would expand background checks on buyers to include sales made over the Internet and at private gun shows. But there is another measure on the ballot that would prohibit the expansion of background checks, Initiative 591. And some believe that measure, although diametrically opposed to I-594, could pass, too.

If that happens, it could be up to the state’s courts to sort it out.

Voters could also approve Initiative 1351, which would mandate smaller class sizes across the state. The measure could prove a challenge for the state Legislature, potentially costing the state $4.7 billion through 2019, according to the Office of Financial Management. The money would have to come from raising taxes or cutting programs and would add to the difficulty lawmakers are already facing due to the court ruling on basic education funding.

Local school districts have also estimated they would have to build new schools to meet the requirements of the initiative. Those costs presumably would fall to local taxpayers.