As students around the state prepared to take the Washington Assessment of Student Learning this week, we learned that the cost of the WASL could reach $47 million next year.
That’s too much money. Testing is important to keeping educators accountable, but not at that cost. The money would better go to hiring 900 teachers.
Defending the I-960 lawsuit
Some people say that legislators are trying to overturn the will of the people with their lawsuit against the requirement in Initiative 960 for a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to pass a tax increase.
But that “will of the people” must be consistent with the state Constitution, just as the will of the Legislature must be.
Since the Constitution says that the Legislature can pass bills with a simple majority, there’s a legitimate constitutional question about whether a law can make that requirement more difficult without a Constitutional amendment.
If the Legislature passed a law that seemed to conflict with the Constitution, someone would challenge it. We should expect the same thing with a voter-approved citizen initiative.
Money for Sonics to save Seattle Center
I’ve opposed paying public money for a new basketball arena, but I’m ready to support the recent proposal.
The proposal would extend rental-car and restaurant taxes to pay half the cost of upgrades to Key Arena at Seattle Center. Private investors would pay the other half.
It would help efforts to revitalize the Seattle Center.
The Seattle Center has long been a regional assert, one that has grown haggard in recent years. The city of Seattle is considering replacing the Fun Forest with a water pond in the summer and an ice-skating rink in the winter; tearing down the 60-year-old Memorial Stadium grandstands and creating open area; and remodeling the Center House.
A revitalized arena with a big-league tenant would complement those efforts.
Stop initiative inflation
Among the initiatives to the people that could make the state ballot this year is number 1,000, the “Death with Dignity” initiative.
Do we really need a four-digit ballot measure?
The numbers have gone up rapidly in recent years.
We’ve had citizen initiatives for about 95 years. It took about 50 years for initiatives to the people to reach number 200 and initiatives to the legislature to reach number 75.
Now that initiatives to the people have reached number 1,000 and initiatives to the legislature have reached 350, let’s start over. Go back to single digits, perhaps skipping numbers of initiatives that once made the ballot.
Evan Smith is the Enterprise Forum editor. Send comments to entopinion@heraldnet.com.
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