The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.
Along with the usual decisions on budgets and local concerns, Washington lawmakers will have a record number of initiatives to ponder this year that cover everything from police pursuits to requiring some people to pay more taxes.
Six initiatives to the Legislature are likely to have enough valid signatures to delight minority Republicans and give majority Democrats a three-way Hobson’s choice: Pass initiatives they don’t like. Ignore initiatives they don’t like, thus sending those proposed changes to voters on the November ballot. Come up with an alternative to the initiatives they don’t like and send the original and the alternative to the November ballot for voters to choose between.
In the 112 years since Washington voters approved this populist-progressive addition to the state Constitution, never have so many initiatives landed in the legislators’ collective lap. Most are designed to eliminate or pare back laws passed in the past several years.
Initiative 2089 would allow parents to review instructional materials at their children’s schools and let them have their children opt out of sex education instruction. I-2109 would repeal the tax that would be levied on a person with more than $250,000 in capital gains in a year. I-2111 would ban the state or any local government from imposing an income tax. I-2113 would repeal restrictions on police pursuit of criminal suspects. I-2117 would repeal a new system designed to reduce carbon emissions by limiting the amount of pollutions some businesses can emit and requiring those over the limit to purchase credits. I-2124 would make it easier for workers to opt out of the state’s new long-term care insurance program.
There will be plenty of time in the coming months to discuss the merits. But at the start of the session, it seems appropriate to begin the discussion with the typical grumbling of those who oppose the initiatives — that they represent the vested interests of a select few rather than the voice of the people.
It’s true that the organization behind all six initiatives, which goes by the somewhat innocuous name “Let’s Go Washington,” spent a record amount paying a bounty for each signature contracted workers collected. The Public Disclosure Commission reports show it shelled out slightly under $6.1 million to signature gatherers.
Most of that money came from Brian Heywood, a hedge fund manager living near Redmond, who has contributed about $1.7 million to the campaign outright and loaned it about $4.5 million more.
At a recent legislative preview, this political largesse was not lauded as public spirit by House Speaker Laurie Jinkins, a Tacoma Democrat, but as “an ultrawealthy millionaire buying his way onto the ballot.”
That prompted questions about whether Jinkins expressed similar views of ultrawealthy folks who shelled out money to get issues like gun control on the ballot.
The $1 million per measure would put any individual initiative behind the $2.9 million spent to get the Yes on Charter Schools initiative on the ballot in 2012, the signature bounty record, according to PDC reports.
Just as it is expected campaign practice for supporters of ballot measures to shrug off their high-spending “angels” as necessary to get signatures, it is standard operating procedure for opponents to question those donors’ motives. But the signature campaign for the six legislative initiatives raises two separate questions.
Will it become a blueprint for wealthy activists who want to tie up a short legislative session with controversial issues that give the majority options it doesn’t like?
Will a joint campaign that spent $6 million to gather signatures set records for overall spending on gaining voter support, considering campaign ads?
We’ll know the answer to the first question in a few weeks. The answer to the second might wait until November in a year in which campaign ads will have to be expensive in a presidential year and will have to be numerous to stand out among the crowded ballot choices.
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