State ballot measures all saw overwhelming acceptance or rejection. Some thoughts:
Charter Schools: Referendum 55 would have been a grand experiment, allowing a few charter schools. I thought that we should find out once and for all if charters would work here, but voters rejected it by a 58-42 margin.
Voters have rejected two charter-schools initiatives; now, after the Legislature passed a charter-schools bill, voters have rejected it by referendum.
After three losses, it’s time for proponents to accept defeat.
Gambling: Voters rejected, by a 60-40 margin, Initiative 892. which would have allowed slot-machine-like devices at non-tribal gambling sites, with taxes from the machines going to a fund to reduce property taxes. Apparently, voters decided that the dangers of more gambling outweighed the benefit of lower taxes.
It was a defeat for anti-tax crusader Tim Eyman. In the past, voters saw Eyman’s initiatives as populist revolts, but this time they saw Eyman and his organization as hired guns for gambling businesses.
Eyman says he is preparing more initiatives. If voters see the initiatives as promoting someone else’s interest, they’ll lose, too.
Education Trust Fund: I-884 was another noble idea that went down hard, this one because people weren’t ready to add to an already high sales tax.
Hanford Cleanup: Voters passed Initiative 297. Let’s hope it doesn’t have unintended consequences.
Top-Two Primary: Voters passed I-872 in reaction to having to declare a party for the first time in 70 years.
Washington’s political parties had sued to stop the blanket primary after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a similar system in California.
The parties hoped to get a partisan primary that would give them control of the nomination process, but now they have a system they like even less. The parties now say that they’ll sue to get control over who uses party names, but, if they do, voters might punish them again. How? Maybe by making county offices non-partisan.
When King County adopted its charter in 1967, the Charter Commission considered making elected offices non-partisan, but made them partisan to get the support of the parties. Several times since (including this year), the Municipal League of Seattle has requested a vote on making the County Council non-partisan.
The best thing for the political parties is to try to work within the voter-approved system.
Do you have a comment? Send it to:
The Enterprise
P.O. Box 977
Lynnwood, Wash. 98036
E-mail: entopinion@heraldnet.com
(Use “Letter to the editor” in the subject line)
Fax: 425-774-8622
Evan Smith is the Enterprise Forum editor.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
