Nothing fuels voters’ cynicism more than being misled by government officials. If state lawmakers want to build trust with voters, they should start by coming clean on their abuse of the emergency clause, a tactic they’ve used often in the recent past to preempt voters’ right to second-guess them on controversial legislation.
Washington’s Constitution grants the people considerable power through the initiative and referendum processes. The latter gives citizens an opportunity to veto unwanted laws passed by the Legislature by filing a referendum within 90 days after the session in question ends. If enough signatures are gathered, voters get to decide whether to keep the law as passed or reject it.
The Constitution makes one exception: The right to referendum can be bypassed if a bill is “necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety, support of the state government and its existing public institutions.”
Trouble is, lawmakers have taken that definition beyond any test of reasonableness, tacking emergency clauses onto 740 bills in the past 11 years. That’s 17 percent of all bills enacted. With that many emergencies, it’s remarkable we’ve survived.
What’s really going on, of course, is that lawmakers are attaching emergency clauses to many bills they think voters might challenge. Last year, Gov. Chris Gregoire vetoed emergency clauses off of 10 bills before signing them into law because, she said, an emergency clearly didn’t exist.
Hopes that the state Supreme Court would put an end to such abuse were dashed in 2005, when by a 6-3 vote it ruled that an emergency is essentially whatever the Legislature says it is. In a scathing dissent, Justice Richard Sanders wrote, “I find little left of the people’s right of referendum.”
Yet that right remains in the Constitution. It just isn’t taken seriously. If lawmakers want citizens to trust them, that needs to change.
Lawmakers should pass House Joint Resolution 4218, introduced last year by Rep. Barbara Bailey (R-Oak Harbor). It’s a constitutional amendment that would require a 60 percent vote of the Legislature to attach an emergency clause to a bill. Budget bills would be exempt. If two-thirds of each chamber approves HJR 4218, it would go to voters for approval in November. If a true emergency exists (flooding, earthquake, a severe economic crisis, etc.), it won’t be hard to muster a 60 percent majority to address it. But it will be harder to usurp the people’s right to act as a check on the Legislature. That might make voters just a little less cynical.
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