Editorial: Privatizing liquor sales is still worth considering

In these skittish political times, the emphatic voice of the voter sometimes paralyzes elected officials into forgetting that they, too, reflect the public’s expectations.

If that happens next month in Olympia, when the Washington Legislature convenes for at least 105 days, it will complicate the job ahead for those focused lawmakers who understand the need to restructure the state’s role in retail sales of liquor.

Yes, the Nov. 2 election just rejected two initiatives that would have privatized liquor sales in the state, one of 18 “control” states where the government monopolizes such trade. But the failure of a pair of take-it-or-leave-it measures does not mean that the long-debated issues surrounding liquor sales are settled.

Fortunately some members of the House and Senate are still willing to wrestle with the challenge. The Senate Labor, Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee is holding a work session on the topic today, and the Associated Press reports that Rep. Gary Alexander, R-Olympia, and Sen. Tim Sheldon, D-Potlatch, both intend to bring back earlier bills that would shift more of the liquor trade from the state to the private sector.

It won’t be easy, and we can expect to hear loudly from state employee groups that last month’s election results demonstrate, with finality, voter satisfaction with the way things are.

Hardly.

The problem with initiatives is that they are written in private and put on the ballot, unalterable, for an up-or-down decision. In Olympia, on the other hand, elected lawmakers introduce bills that are open to public inspection, subject to public hearings with input from constituents, amended in open committee meetings and taken to the House and Senate floors for open debates, more amendments and extended fine-tuning. Such a process allows deliberation and modification under public oversight and produces more discerning legislation.

At present, there are 330 retail liquor outlets in the state, half of them state-owned stores and half private, contract stores. The Legislature has already called for a plan to convert some of the state stores to private, but the Liquor Control Board is resisting, contending that while contract stores might work statewide in Oregon, they would be problematical in Washington, which is more urban.

Washington’s system generated $370 million in state and local revenue in the past biennium, but the Legislature needs to examine the extent to which private enterprise might match or exceed that performance, especially factoring in the savings of selling off the 166 stores the state now owns and reducing its payroll.

Voters don’t get to dabble in nuance when rendering their decision on a ballot measure. Their only choices are yes or no, and when it came to simply jettisoning state liquor sales, they said no.

Fortunately, they elect senators and representatives to perform the more meticulous work that’s possible in the Legislature. The November vote is no reason for inaction.