The news that Lynnwood has lost its spot on the Community Transit Board shows the illogic of board representation.

Prior to this year, Lynnwood had one of the seats allocated to Snohomish County’s large cities, but it lost that spot when Marysville moved into that category.

The board members from Edmonds and Marysville are supposed to represent the interests of the three “large” cities in the Community Transit service area. They won’t.

Everett, the county’s largest city, is not part of the CT system because it has its own bus service.

A bill that would have expanded the board from nine members to 11 died recently in the Legislature.

A better system would divide the area into nine geographic districts. Under such a system, Lynnwood, Mountlake Terrace and Brier, along with Edmonds and Woodway, would get at least two board seats

Top-two primary: Stop fighting it

After the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Washington’s top-two primary, the state Republican and Democratic parties said they might file another lawsuit.

They should cut their losses rather than end up with something worse.

The Supreme Court is supposed to have the final word, but language in the court’s opinion indicates an openness to another suit.

The court said that, while the top-two law was constitutional on its face, the plan might face constitutional scrutiny based on how the state applies it and how people understand it.

Justices called claims that the new scheme would confuse voters “mere speculation” but left open the possibility that the political parties would have a case once they could show actual harm from the top-two system.

Elections officials will carefully design the ballots and the voters’ pamphlets to make sure voters understand that the primary is qualifying candidates for the general election rather than picking party nominees and that general-election candidates aren’t necessarily the nominees of their parties.

Still, the parties will find someone who finds either the primary or the general election ballot confusing and bring a suit on that person’s behalf.

Already, the parties are preparing suits over the way the Secretary of State is preparing the ballot.

If the court eventually should decide that the top-two primary as Washington applies it is unconstitutional, the state Grange, sponsor of the 2004 “top two” initiative, says it will draft an initiative to drop all party labels from both primary and general election ballots.

Voters, who have expressed disgust at having to pick a single party’s ballot, would probably pass it.

This would give us a ballot that might say “Representative, 7th Congressional District – Jim McDermott, Non-Partisan.”

So, the top-two primary may save us from that silly prospect and, ultimately, save partisan politics in Washington.

Let’s in everyone’s interest to stop fighting the top-two system and try to make it work.

Evan Smith is the Enterprise Forum editor. Send comments to entopinionheraldnet.com