Court has handed GOP the initiative
T he 2008 political dynamic changed last week. The low-turnout, off-year election leaned right. The make-it-tough-to-raise-taxes Initiative 960 passed easily, as did the less controversial constitutional rainy day fund. Puget Sound area voters overwhelmingly rejected tax hikes for roads and transit. And although the constitutional amendment to make it easier to approve school levies may yet squeak by, the close decision confirms the wallet-clenching mood of the electorate.
The public waved the yellow caution flag, telling spenders to slow down. Washington voters continue to demand a say in tax and spending decisions.
Then Thursday, the state Supreme Court challenged their ability to participate. Ruling on a lawsuit filed by three left-leaning activist groups and Whitman County, the court concluded that the state’s voters lack the wisdom to understand simple ballot language.
“You’re dumb,” they explained, in essence. Attention-getting it may be, but insulting voters’ intelligence rarely leads to a happy outcome. State politicians rallied rapidly, at least rhetorically.
Here’s the background. Initiative 747, setting a 1 percent cap on property tax increases for state and local government, passed in 2001 with 58 percent voter approval. Just one year earlier, in the high-turnout 2000 general election, voters had given 56 percent approval to Initiative 722, replacing an existing 6 percent limit with a tighter 2 percent lid.
Why a second vote? After I-722 passed, critics filed a lawsuit. So initiative sponsor Tim Eyman filed I-747, imposing a tighter tax cap. After Eyman qualified I-747, the court tossed I-722. That decision effectively restored the 6 percent limit. In Thursday’s ruling, the five-member majority reasoned – using the term loosely – that the voters didn’t know that they were reducing the limit from 6 percent to 1 percent, a “substantially different impact on the public coffers, as well as the perceived benefit to the individual voter’s purse” than a reduction from 2 percent.
Remember, these are the same voters who had already enthusiastically embraced the 2 percent limit. And, unless they had just crawled out from under a rock to vote in an off-year election, they had been blitzed with a barrage of news coverage, editorial commentary and campaign ads blasting the initiative. Everyone knew that I-722 had been jettisoned.
Besides, as stated in the dissent, I-747 “specifically aimed at lowering the tax growth to one percent.” That it did, until the court decided otherwise.
The dissenters got it right. Justice Charles Johnson wrote: “The majority seems to suggest that voters are unable to think or read for themselves, when in fact our democratic process is based on the assumption that voters do in fact read and understand the impact of their votes.”
Now we see that our top political leaders read and understood the impact of the court’s decision.
Today, every politician in the state wants to deliver property tax relief. Republicans, who generally supported I-747, want to see it reinstated. Gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi has called on the governor to hold a one-day special legislative session for that purpose, saying the issue can’t wait until the Legislature reconvenes in January. Local governments are preparing their budgets now.
Gov. Chris Gregoire has asked local governments to stick with the limit this year. She now pledges to push for a 1 percent cap, saying “voters approved Initiative 747, it has been in place for five years and I think we need to leave it in place.”
The first and decisive political battle will be waged within the Legislature’s Democratic caucuses, pitting the pragmatists against the “progressives.” Most Democrats opposed I-722 and I-747. Their key constituencies in labor unions and local government reflexively oppose Eyman’s initiatives. They will be promoting targeted tax relief for homeowners and a tax limit that grows with inflation. Why, they say, with Democrats controlling Olympia, should lawmakers rush to embrace policies they can’t stand?
Led by the governor, pragmatists answer: because the voters have spoken, and ignoring their wishes jeopardizes our majorities. The liberals respond: If your only interest is remaining in office, what difference does your majority make?
And so on. The debate exposes fault lines that threaten Democratic unity going into the short 2008 legislative session and the long campaign. Republicans may thank the court.
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