Taxpayers Invited To Play Budget Game

Taxpayers can decide how to spend their money this month, in an interactive town hall meeting of citizens convened to write a mock state budget.

The League of Women Voters, state public libraries, and state Senate have cooperated to launch Exercise in State Budget Choices, a game in which citizens in 25 cities around the state, including Spokane, dig into a 66-page budget workbook and decide which programs to cut and which to fund.

They’ll hash out their budget together via a satellite link.

“It’s good for people in Seattle to hear what people in Spokane or the Tri-Cities think, and vice versa,” said Sen. John Moyer, R-Spokane, a host of the budget exercise. “What someone in Puget Sound thinks is a necessity may be considered a luxury in Eastern Washington.”

The exercise is scheduled for Jan. 25 from 6 to 9:30 p.m. To participate, call the league at (800) 419-2596 before Jan. 18.

The transformation of the citizen initiative process from grass-roots advocacy to tool of monied special interests is progressing nicely.

Homespun citizen revolts like Initiative 601, the tax and spending limitation measure passed in 1993, still are possible. But more and more, those who prefer to skip all that messy grass-roots business can simply buy their way onto the ballot.

Take Initiative 164, the property rights initiative. It would require governments to pay property owners if regulations infringe on the use of their property.

The measure first was proposed as a bill to the Legislature last year. It never got out of committee.

So property rights advocates shaped it into an initiative to the people. It foundered again, when supporters couldn’t get enough signatures to put the measure on the November ballot.

The initiative nearly flunked a third time when grass-roots advocates found themselves with just $48,000 raised and 13,000 signatures gathered by Thanksgiving, one month before the deadline to qualify for an initiative to the 1995 Legislature.

But with the November election and its sweeping GOP victories, the initiative suddenly looked interesting to big businesses. “We saw it as the opportunity of a lifetime,” said Tom McCabe of the Building Industry Association of Washington.

Realtors, timber interests and home builders figured they could get the initiative passed by the Legislature, dodging both a popular election if the measure was put on the ballot, and the governor’s veto pen, if it were passed as a law.

An initiative to the Legislature can be passed by a simple majority of each house, and goes into law immediately. It never hits the governor’s desk.

So business lobbyists kicked $200,000 into the signature drive, and hired a California firm that mobilized 100 hired guns to fan out around the state. They bagged 217,000 signatures in less than 30 days. Amazing what can be accomplished with 75 cents to $1 spent per signature.

“We are not purists,” McCabe said. “If you want to communicate and mobilize statewide, it takes resources.”

The measure is expected to qualify for the Legislature’s consideration this session.

Ironically, its backers can be counted on to urge lawmakers to give the measure special attention because it comes from the grass roots. But those roots were heavily fertilized with special interest money.

Turns out Gov. Mike Lowry is a betting man.

Lowry dispatched a note to former Democratic Gov. Ann Richards of Texas last month, inviting her to wager on the Alamo Bowl. The guv, of course, bet on the Cougars over the Baylor Bears, staking one box of Washington apples.

The Bears bombed, so Richards’ chili is en route.

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