The 2005 Washington State election thread : where we talk about voting Yes/No on Ini-shit-ives

I remember getting these things like TWO YEARS before the election year in question.. ok, maybe not two years, but at least 90 days or so.

I'm for NO on both 901 and 912. I-912 will fund some needed improvements over here on the east side of the Cascades as well.

We just got our ballots yesterday so I have to read up on the rest of them.

I don't think even Tim "I'm the Matthew Perry that destroys social progress but saves your pocketbooks! :D" Eyman is wanting to get attached to I-912.. instead promoting his relatively weaker initiative, that may or may not pass, because it's such an inconsequential initiative anyway.

But the very populous and prosperous burbs of Seattle and Tacoma are going to push this to winning I think... I bet you almost everyone in Redmond, Bellevue, Kirkland, Bothell, Gig Harbor, etc. or any other well-doing suburb of Western WA is going to vote Yes on this..

And then we await the first lawsuit against 901 once it passes and someone gets conveniently "fined".. then the civil rights lawsuit fun begins. :/

Glad to see Eastern Washingtonians on here, especially being out in Walla Walla this weekend.

Walla Walla has the most amazing Humane Society Thrift store - it is just huge.

But back to 901 and 912.

901 got the thumbs-up from MoveOn! I was already this close to cancelling my MoveOn notification e-mails after I got sick of one too many "YOU GO CALL THIS SENATOR... YOU COME TO THIS PROTEST" type e-mails... I had more hope for their tactics, but it's the same old boring barking tactics again and again and again... At least when conservative groups do this (judging from the ones my grandmother gets), their delivery is more slick, sleazy, yet -- most importantly -- less annoying.

But MoveOn's endoresement of 901 takes the cake. They've jumped on protesting or fighting anything that hints at taking away liberties (and there's nothing wrong with that, of course!), but they're endorsing the "Get fined if you're caught smoking even sorta near a bar" initiative? I guess civil liberties only apply to those who don't indulge in the demon t'backey. (again, I'm saying this as a proud non-smoker who would love to go to smoke-free bars.) I'm going to e-mail MoveOn ask that they remove me from their nanny e-mails.

On the flip, I'm starting to think 912, the gas tax repeal initiative, has even less hope than before. The advantage of commuting to Redmond is seeing how different the election signs are over there, and most relevantly, what the initiative signs are. Almost all of Redmond are COVERED in NO on I-912 signs.. they say something like "We can't avoid fixing this road PARKING LOT! NO on I-912!".

Keep in mind that, I think, the mid-to-upper-class Seattle burbs like Redmond, Bellevue, Kirkland, etc. are the silent major fraction of WA state votes that often make a difference in elections where a candidate/initiative can't gauge an easy win or loss. They're typically on the fence, as far as bipartisan politics go, though I gather this is the core of Libertarian voters in the state.. I'd say the 12% of voters who chose Libertarian candidate Ruth Bennett this past election year was due to this very population. (12% is HUGE for a third party voting percentage, no matter what that third party is, and no matter how much the Dem or Repub candidates suck.)

Anyway, food for thought and something to keep in mind. I don't think Washington state is becoming drastically less liberal, although I don't think it will become more liberal (unless something weird happens, and Seattle gets a unprecedentedly huge influx of left wing people escaping other states.) Greater Seattle will always dominate in votes barely enough to keep things mainly on the left, but I'm not counting on this lasting forever.

The Libertarian popularity in Washington state is grossly underrated, for better or worse. (Generally, my political philosophies lie in the liberal-but-Libertarian-curious category.) I don't mind Gregroire so far. She's doing FAR better than her election campaign was doing, which was disastrous to nil. But the 12% or so votes for Libertarian candidate for gov, Ruth Bennett, are getting forgotten, and this is going to bite the asses of Democrats and Republicans in the next few years.

I haven't seen many NO on 912 signs over here, but have seen 2 YES ones that I recall off-hand - one in the yard of the cranky old guy with the John Birch Society pickup truck and the anti-NAFTA placards, and one two houses up the block from his. (The JBS truck has a bumpersticker like "Don't go back under England" - wtf is up with that?)

I started reading the text of 330 and 336 - my main concern with both of these is their sponsorship by special interest groups. The ad for 330 was especially appalling: "Texas and California have passed similar legislation." SO WHAT? That doesn't make it the right thing for Washington.

HAWTTEST CANDIDATE:

Seattle School District No. 1 Director Candidate Astrid Adair Gielen (Non-Partisan) : aw yeah. (Yes, she's only 19.. I'm a dirty old man, I know)

BEST NAME OF A CANDIDATE:

Seattle School District No. 1 Director Candidate Mary Bass (Non-Partisan) : also featured dance artist on Boom-Shock-A-Lock records in Miami, FL. (ok, maybe not true.)

Apologies. Anyway...

:-O

I mean, I just figured out the I-330 sign this morning - completely missed the magnifying glass image and have thought for weeks someone was defacing the last 0 with black tape or something.

From what I heard (and take this with a grain of salt), I-330 is REALLY bad, and I-336 is something that should be studied before being praised. They're being treated as opposites, but they're not necessarily that.

GOOD NEWS though... the polls for I-912 show it going down, basically. Many Republicans have broken ranks with the official party line, and have put money into mailers that urge voters to vote down the repeal. I'd be horribly surprised (and I stress "horribly") if it were to pass at this point.

I-901 will be the interesting one. It's going to pass. People are going to vote for it because they want smoke-free places.. without reading the fine print. And then, if the police or health authorities flex their muscle to fine anybody in Seattle, at least, there's a union of clubs/bars that will go ahead and attempt to sue the state to try to repeal the initiative for being unconstitional, which is very likely is...

And, yes, "SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION 8207" is basically saying "We're trying to get you, the voter, to look at how things are done here on a semi-micro political level." I don't mind this! It will be an educational experience, although I think most people are just going to flip a coin with this one.. which is kinda stupid in the end.

I wish the WA state page would do Java animations of Penny, our voting mascot, to act like Clippy in Microsoft Word.

"OH! I SEE YOU HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION 8207! Would you like a) a brief synopsis, b) the full detailed legalese, or c) check out my busty ink fountain? ;-D "

BTW, anything good going on in Seattle this Saturday? We'll be over there, nothing on the agenda yet for that night.

Otherwise, if you guys are willing to do a small FAP type thing, I'm down. :)

Feel free to agree/disagree/insult/praise the following.. but here are my brief reasonings for why I'm voting NO on all of these guys... I wish I could rely on the local papers to get more info about the initiatives, but all outlets have been, let's say, piss poor with the analyses (For example, The Stranger's coverage was done "drunk", which may be kinda "haha", and possibly fabricated, but not exactly constructive.)

I-900 : The Tim Eyman Initiative That's Not As Bad As Previous Tim Eyman Initiatives So It Must Be OK Right? Well Not Necessarily (for people outside WA state, Tim Eyman is essentially a persistent annoying Matthew Perry smirking holding a fake bloody axe with a T-shirt that says "I slash taxes to save your wallets! Phooey to city developments!"). We already have two bills for auditing reform. Also, this bill is essentially a partisan politics initiative in disguise. King County i.e. LIBERAL institutions would be first on the auditing block. NO on 900.

I-901: I welcome our Non-Smoking Overlords, personally. It would be really nice to go to a show and not smell like an ashtray afterwards. Some bars agree with this, and would welcome a reasonable ban on smoking in bars -- stressing "reasonable". However, I'm not about to vote YES on possibly one of the laziest, stupidest laws ever conceived just so I have one less inconvenience. There are at least 4 major problems with this initiative:

1) Why is this a state initiative? It would make far more sense if this were a city (i.e. Seattle) initiative, having talked to the institutions to be affected. What may work well for health-conscious 20-something white collar folks in Bellevue is going to be COMPLETELY absurd to folks in, say, Centralia or Chehalis who have been going to the same tavern for the past 30 years to have a beer and a smoke. Like these people are going to suddenly realize "Hmm, maybe the state IS looking after my health! What was I thinking for the past 30 years??"

2) Smokers wouldn't be able to smoke within 25 feet outside a window of a bar. THAT makes sense. Make sure that supermarket shoppers get all the second-hand smokers outside instead of the drunk-ass people outside the bars, because the latter are less deserving of such "health risks" (see ..3)... never mind the out-of-towners who want to have a puff outside a restaurant that happens to be two doors down from a bar, technically making them fineable, even though they had no idea that bar existed.

3) What studies are there that show that occasional/rare exposure to second-hand smoke in an open air environment is any more dangerous than exposure to, say, car fumes? We should outlaw cars from running within 25 feet of any pedestrian area then.. or loud music for that matter.

4) How the fuck do you enfore this? Last checked, neither the health departments nor the Seattle police know how the hell they're going to enforce this, if they're going to bother enforcing it. I don't trust either to enforce it unilaterally. Which is the crux of this issue.

It's just a bad bad law that's a future lawsuit and a waste of taxpayers' money waiting to happen. It will pass, because it will just be the "anti-smoking" bill, it will be sued out of existence eventually because of its blatant unconstitutionality, and make everyone involved with this bill look like a dumbass... which would be great if I didn't have to pay for it. Fuck Dat. As a proud non-smoker, NO on 901.

I-912: Repeal on gas tax applied to help fund state-wide reconstruction. "I want gas prices to go slightly down, at the risk of the very economic fabric of where I live to go into shambles because of a natural disaster." Smart. Despite the Official Republican Party Line being "yes", many Republicans have broken rank and urged a No vote here. I guess many Eastside folks realized how awful things could get if 520 bridge collapsed and there's no money to replace it. ("DUH!") NO on 912

I-330: Caps settlements for malpractice lawsuits, waives patient's right to sue doctors. Basically, doctors need to advance by not letting all these pesky patients complain about their mistakes, which can sometimes cause them permanent damage. Also, consistently bad doctors shouldn't be sued; they just need to know their mistakes and be allowed to progress. Right. Uh, NO on 330.

I-336: Adds several tiers of bureaucracy to make sure doctors are severely punished for malpractice. It's a good idea, but it goes a bit too far... Had this state been considered one ridden with malpractice issues (like California at least once was, if not still today), I would understand, but this is just taking it a bit too far. Slightly reluctant NO on 336.

And of course the most important one: SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION 8207... basically, it will rename "District Courts" to something else, and the process for selecting someone to oversee Judicial Conduct in one of the seats will require more people. This is great fodder for students in a political science class, but kinda bafflingly trivial, especially for people who don't pay attention to politics in general, which is a LOT.

It's like urging the state to vote on whether to rename the machine in Olympia's Capitol Building anteroom that dispenses water from "water cooler" to "water dispensement device", and allowing a few more people to decide which brand of spring water should be used to filled that water dispensement device.

I think people are just going to flip a coin on this one. I'm going to Approve it. Well, you know, I shouldn't be all negative ALL the time. That's just bad karma.

More to come on individial candidates...

He's certainly listed a lot of things he ISN'T going to do which make sense.. but I haven't gotten a clue as to the other half. Is this guy a Mark Sidran In Sheep's Clothing? Or is he a grossly underrated great candidate that's being overshadowed by Greg Nickels's doughy populism?

I had decided NO on 330, but wasn't sure on 336, though leaning heavily toward NO. Not too many candidate issues in Richland this time around - the biggest deal is over in Pasco.