Moyer: Property Vote A Mistake Senator Says He Blew It By Helping Pass Bill He Said He’d Vote Against

Sen. John Moyer, R-Spokane, says his vote, instrumental in passing a controversial property rights measure, was a mistake.

“I’d like to dig a hole and crawl into it,” Moyer said. “When I voted for it I’m sure I influenced others … I think I was key.”

The measure, Initiative 164, passed 28-20. It is the toughest property rights measure in the country, requiring taxpayers to compensate property owners for any loss in value of their property due to regulations adopted for public benefit.

Moyer confirmed Saturday he led constituents, both verbally and in writing, to believe he would vote against the measure, because he felt it should go to the voters for consideration.

Because it was an initiative to the Legislature, the measure would have gone on the ballot in November automatically, if senators voted it down or took no action on it.

But Moyer and other senators prevented a vote of the people on the bill by approving it themselves last week.

The governor has no power to veto it.

The measure becomes law July 24 unless opponents can gather more than 90,000 signatures by then to put it on the November ballot.

Some opponents of the measure in Spokane said they felt Moyer doublecrossed them.

“I feel betrayed,” said Julian Powers, 68, a Spokane environmentalist who spent an hour at Moyer’s Spokane residence just days before the vote, talking over the bill.

“He told us this should go to the voters.”

Moyer confirmed Saturday it was always his intention to vote to bring the bill to the floor, then vote against it, in part because of his concern that signatures to get the measure before the Legislature were obtained by paid signature-gatherers.

“We’re now in a position where you can buy a law by paying people to gather signatures, and I have strong feelings about that,” Moyer said.

But when the bill came up for a final vote in the Senate, Minority Leader Dan McDonald, R-Bellevue, told Moyer he had made a promise to him, too.

“He said, ‘You promised you’d vote for this,”’ Moyer said.

“I don’t recall that, but it must be true. “I had to keep my promise.

“I feel very bad about it. I didn’t handle it well. That’s all there is to it. I don’t know how I got myself in that bind, but I did.”

Moyer said he called Powers to apologize. “I just told him I’m sorry. I blew it,” Moyer said. “What else could I say?”

Once he saw the bind he was in, Moyer said he decided to vote for the bill not only to keep his promise to his colleagues, but because if the Senate passed the measure, its flaws could be immediately studied and perhaps corrected, come next session.

If the measure passed at the polls in November, lawmakers would by law have to wait two years before tinkering with the measure, and muster a supermajority of votes to change it.

Moyer said Saturday he would begin pushing immediately for a resolution to require the formation of a committee to study the bill. But passage of the resolution was in doubt, with just one day left in the legislative session.

Meanwhile hard feelings linger.

“I’m sorry but to say ‘I blew it’ just isn’t good enough,” said Bonnie Mager, Eastern Washington field organizer for the Washington Environmental Council, who also met with Moyer about the bill before his vote.

“He knew the importance of this bill, and of his vote. I was really taken in when he said he would not vote for this, and shocked to hear that he had. I’m really disappointed he went with the politicians who pressured him, and not the citizens. It’s a bitter pill.”