I-912, The No New Gas Tax initiative has, as expected, officially qualified for the November ballot. Meanwhile, the Institute of Justice is representing the I-912 campaign to protect free speech rights.
Also, the Public Disclosure Commission has ruled in response to Richard Pope's complaint that various public agencies had unlawfully endorsed the Keep Washington Rolling campaign against I-912. In fact, those agencies did not endorse KWR, so there was no violation. It was however irresponsible of the Shameless Weasels who are running the KWR campaign to falsely claim that those agencies endorsed KWR.
Another interesting point: Reader C. Oh points out that the official "invalidation rate" of unqualified signatures for I-912 at 13.94% is the lowest invalidation rate out of any of the initiatives that have qualified in the last year. The honors for highest invalidation rate of recent initiatives goes to I-884 at 22.36%. Far be it from me to suggest that people who present themselves as "supporters of education" would have less integrity about collecting valid signatures than promoters of other initiatives.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at August 10, 2005 01:12 PM | Email This*** CHANGE IN 2005 *** (SEE 5034-S.SL) ***
(1) It is a violation of this chapter for a person to sponsor with actual malice:
(a) Political advertising that contains a false statement of material fact about a candidate for public office. However, this subsection (1)(a) does not apply to statements made by a candidate or the candidate's agent about the candidate himself or herself;
(b) Political advertising that falsely represents that a candidate is the incumbent for the office sought when in fact the candidate is not the incumbent;
(c) Political advertising that makes either directly or indirectly, a false claim stating or implying the support or endorsement of any person or organization when in fact the candidate does not have such support or endorsement.
(2) Any violation of this section shall be proven by clear and convincing evidence.
Posted by: Right Wing Wacko on August 10, 2005 04:15 PMGood for you guys.
Posted by: Coyote on August 10, 2005 07:05 PMThanks C. Oh. for pointing that out.
Posted by: Jeff B. on August 10, 2005 07:14 PM"The initiative probably needs at least 280,000 to qualify. I would not be at all surprised if there is a higher than normal level of improper/double signatures given the haste and emotions at play. I would guess that they turn in 245-260,000 total signatures, and the total legal signatures turns out to be more in the 175,000 range, if not lower." Posted by: JDB on July 7, 2005 09:46 AM
Talk about eating crow. Let's see... 86.06% of 400,996 = 3443257.1576 That's only about double what he predicted.
Posted by: ItTakesAVillageToConveneAGrandJury on August 10, 2005 07:30 PMTransportation
Transportation solutions for King County are stuck in gridlock. David Irons believes it’s time to put to the voters a regional transportation plan that is sensible and cost-effective.
After many years of studying and debating transportation improvements, it is time to move forward with putting a regional plan on the ballot, and giving the voters a chance to be heard. Multimodal investment must be balanced between roads and transit. Neither one by itself will solve any problems. They must be integrated and work together. Because freight and commuter mobility are the keys to economic recovery and development, we cannot afford to wait any longer to begin investing in real improvements on the ground.
0.2% Sales Tax
0.1% RTA Sales Tax That means Sound Transit. See for yourself!
$75 License Fee
0.3% MVET
2.8˘ Local Option Gas Tax
I agree. We really do make to make real improvements. The roads byte and the congestion bytes. Olympia asked the voters twice and the voters said NO twice. Olympia needs to work within its budget and, as credit counselors says, live within their means. When does NO mean NO.
To the corporations that support KWR - are you going to give all of your employees raises so that they can afford the new tax?
Let us look at some additional government sponsored corruption surrounding I-912 opposition.
"the San Juan County Prosecutor signed over his prosecutorial powers to Foster Pepper Shefelman, a law firm that makes money from selling bonds (like those that would be sold if the gas tax went forward) as well as a member of the committee opposed to I-912. In their role as Prosecutor, the law firm has demanded internal campaign documents that could greatly help our opponents."
Looks like prosecutorial misconduct for knowingly contracting an outside law firm that holds a conflict of interest because they stand to benefit (beyond the compensation for prosecution) financially if they are able to get access to internal campaign information.
How many ethics violations are there here? Doubt the Bar will even look at this.
San Juan County has only served to bolster the I-912 campaign supporters.
like $1 billion for the Viaduct and $800 million for light rail to UW?
take a look www.rtid.dst.wa.us
This is what Irons voted to support. What would a billion dollars do for the Viaduct? Nothing. I hardly call that a real transportation improvement.
I have now heard from two trusted sources that confirm that Irons does indeed support the 9 cent gas tax. good grief.
Posted by: Dale on August 10, 2005 08:34 PMIf so, he has torpedoed his campaign for commissioner.
Posted by: Shaun on August 11, 2005 07:27 AMIt's not possible, is it, that with the increase in revenues over the years, the same state leadership abdicated their duties to maintain levels of funding out of the general fund for the infrastructure, is it?
I am of the opinion that the legislature needs to put a referendum out to see if the public wants to fund things like spending millions of dollars to split the Department of Trade, Economic Development, and one other thing into three separate departments with their own infrastructure. Or Gregoire's new plan for tsunamis. Let's let the legislature put the funds they have on the biggest priorities we have in the state, and then go to the voters to approve the lesser priorities, if they can't figure a way to do it all.
Otherwise, you have another example of YOUR legislature hiding their pet projects that they KNOW we don't want, and through fear and pressure finding ways to get the voters to pony up even more dough. $220 million in the Federal package signed this week for the viaduct, and we'll loose it if we don't add BILLIONS to the bloated state budget. (That amount won't even cover the animal bridges on I90 planned for the "highway purposes" out of this state transportation plan.)
And, what's this nonsense about Irons wanting to go with a regional plan instead of the state package? Folks, they have ALWAYS planned on the state package, coming back to the voters for an additional regional plan, coming back for MORE Sound Transit funding, coming up with 'enhancements' to this year's state transportation plan, THEN increasing the regional plan's 'revenue.' I would challenge Mr. Irons for clarification on his statements, for it doesn't pass the sniff test.
And, by the way, NO ONE is talking about congestion relief. AGAIN! Face it, another bait and switch routine going on where they hint to it, then when the package is approved, they go off and do their little pet projects and leave the people in traffic sitting there, much poorer and still sitting in traffic. There is NO incentive to improve commute times here, for that would take away their incentive for us to pay more and more for less and less.
(In the tip of the hat segment, I do recognize that the DOT did ONE thing to improve congestion, and that was to have tow trucks and incident vehicles out on the roads to clear accidents quickly. They have been effective, and much appreciated by those of us who MUST be single occupant vehicle commuters. I wonder if that one improvement was worth ALL the money I've spent on monorail, Sound Transit, higher gas taxes, and such, but at least they can claim one victory which is appreciated by me.)
Posted by: Potshot on August 11, 2005 07:30 AMMike Vaska, who ran for the Republican nomination for Attorney General last year, is one of the lead attorneys who got the the radio time by Wilbur and Carlson to be disclosed as an in-kind campaign contribution, which I and many others widely view as an affront to the freedom of speech and of the press.
Doug Roulstone is a strong Republican candidate for Congress in the Second Congressional District, one whom I've been excited about, and supporting.
Roulstone was Vaska's campaign manager.
I know Roulstone cannot be held responsible for everything Vaska does or says. I also know Vaska might merely be a hired gun here, and not actually believe in the case. Regardless, I think someone should ask Roulstone where he stands on this increasingly important issue of campaign finance and free speech.