When the Legislature slaps an emergency clause on a bill, they take away the people's right to referendum. Guaranteed by our state Constitution, referendums are a critical part of our system's checks-and-balances -- with any Legislature-enacted law, the citizens have the right to try to get enough voter signatures to get a public vote on it. In our entire state history, that right to referendum hasn't been exercised often (since 1912, only 72 have been filed with just 36 getting enough sigs, only 5 in the past 25 years), but its availability provides a moderating influence on the Legislature (since officials know that their bills have the potential to be put to a public vote, they are prodded to make their legislation less radical and more citizen-supported).
Slapping emergency clauses on bills makes them "referendum proof" -- doing so has two very negative consequences:
1) It prohibits the people from exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right to referendum -- they're not even allowed to try to collect signatures which, even if unsuccessful, provides greater public awareness of the legislation -- citizens' constitutional rights are negated when the Legislature slaps emergency clauses on bills.
2) It removes legislators' incentive to moderate their bills' policies to make them more acceptable to (or at least less opposed by) the citizenry. Without even the possibility of a referendum, the Legislature is not deterred from adopting radical policies that they know voters oppose because the potential of a referendum is absent.
Ever since Governor Mike Lowry called a special session in October 1995 and the Legislature declared a baseball stadium an "emergency," the Legislature has misused, abused, and overused emergency clauses on bills (their pro-emergency-bill behavior was completely unleashed when the state supreme court abdicated its responsibility when they refused to laugh out of court that baseball stadium's emergency clause (imagine the shamelessness adding this to a bill requiring a baseball stadium: This act is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety, or support of the state government and its existing public institutions, and shall take effect immediately).
But as bad as they've been since 1995, we ain't seen nothing yet when considering the legislature's abuse of the emergency clause in 2010. Gregoire and the Democrats know that voters oppose higher taxes and voters oppose getting rid of the two-thirds-vote-for-the-Legislature-to-raise-taxes requirement. But they've announced they're going to do it anyway.
They'll want to quietly slap emergency clauses on those bills, hoping no one will notice -- we can't let them get away with it.
It is galling enough that they're ignoring the people (and common sense) by raising taxes in the middle of a recession and taking away the recently reaffirmed 2/3's requirement, but it would be sickenly unacceptable for them to pour salt in the wound by preventing the citizens from exercising their referendum rights by slapping emergency clauses on their tax-hiking, 2/3's-suspending bills.
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Posted by Tim Eyman at December 11, 2009 08:19 AM | Email ThisThe emergency clause should require a super-majority.
Posted by: yaddacubed on December 11, 2009 09:36 AMThe Democrats and the unions are in a tight spiral of back scratching. Remember when Gregoire bragged about "helping" get tens of thousands of workers into unions back in 2007? Guess where those new union worker's dues went during her 2008 re-election campaign?
Remember the unanimous SCOTUS decision against the WEA in Davenport v. Washington Education Association? The unions could no longer spend agency fees on politics without first obtaining permission from the union member. This was a huge threat to the closed loop of support between Democrats in power and their money supply from the unions. So, what happened? House Bill 2079 happened That changed the law to state that money spent from a union's "general fund" on politics is not considered spending "agency fees" when the balance on the general fund account is greater than the total agency fees collected. So as long as the union's general fund has agency fees + $1, they can spend that money on politics and not run afoul of the SCOTUS decision.
We saw another challenged to the Democrat-Union circle jerk of corruption this year with I-1033. By far the largest beneficiaries of state/local tax spending are the unions, both public and private. I-1033 would have limited the government's ability to confiscate wealth from the citizenry and funnel it into unions. And increase in union jobs via government spending translates directly into an increase in union dues and agency fees which is then spent directly on Democrat re-election campaign.
This tight cycle of taxing/stealing money from citizens and then laundering it through unions is a near perfect power structure that artificially props up both Democrats and unions. Consequently, national unions spent millions in this state to defeat I-1033.
The 2/3rds law is the last remaining barrier to an absolute grip on power. Once the 2/3rds requirement is removed, the Democrat/Union ring of power will be the one ring to bring them all and in the darkness, bind them.
Posted by: blindman on December 11, 2009 11:36 AMHowever, you have [unfairly] become a liability to your own good causes. Many people will vote against anything that is remotely connected to your name. This past year's 1033 was an example. It was a logical, reasonable and simple limitation on gov't growth. It failed because of the sheer number of people who will never vote for *your* proposals under any circumstance.
I want to see your ideas become reality. But you must let someone else carry the mantle in order for these things to become reality.
Posted by: Seabecker on December 11, 2009 01:08 PMYou're making too much sense for Timmy Boy. Timmy Boy's in it for the Benjamins. So you can expect him to carry on.
Posted by: ivan on December 11, 2009 01:30 PMAs much as I support your initiatives, I think you're becoming an effective bogeyman for the opposition to rally around.
Maybe it would be a good idea to be the wizard instead of the witch.
Posted by: blindman on December 11, 2009 01:49 PMGive till it hurts!
You've got a broken link up there.
To the rest of youze: I'd agree that Tim's become a polarizing figure, but do you really believe that tax-and-spend liberals are going to vote for tax reform regardless of who is behind it? What are we hoping, that we can fool them into it? That seems awfully naive.
http://www.permanent-offense.org
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http://www.VotersWantMoreChoices.com
Posted by: Tim Eyman on December 11, 2009 09:01 PMIn case people still don't get it, Democrats have declared war on Americans, both in Washington State and nationally. They couldn't care less about what it good for us, as it is all about what's good for them.
Posted by: Reality on December 11, 2009 09:08 PMOne poster cites the use of his name in their ads as evidence that he has become a detriment. By the same token, we could argue that their overwhelming efforts to smear him is evidence of his effectiveness.
According to George Shultz, the greatest quality of Ronald Reagan was that Reagan "did not accept that extensive political opposition doomed an attractive idea. He would fight resolutely for an idea believing that, if it was valid, he could persuade the American people to support it." ("Turmoil and Strife: My Years as Secretary of State", George P. Shultz).
I see a lot of that in Tim Eyman.
Posted by: travis t on December 12, 2009 12:50 AMTim Eyman didn't just become a polarizing figure. Tim Eyman wasn't made into a polarizing figure by leftists who woke up and decided they ought to smear him.
Tim Eyman became a polarizing figure because he made the choice to steal money from his own contributors and then, when caught, lie about it. He's apologized. That's fantastic. But few will ever take him seriously in politics. Should they?
Posted by: AD on December 12, 2009 05:55 AMEyman needed a salary but wanted to maintain the fiction of being a selfless unpaid activist. If he had done the exact same thing but been upfront about it, no one would have had a problem. He was doing the work to earn the salary. I would not characterize that as 'stealing.' It was a lie though, as he fully admitted.
If you want a 'one strike, you're out' policy fine. Hopefully you, AD are that paragon of perfection who will step up to take Eyman's place as the only barrier against runaway tax-spend gov't.
Posted by: travis t on December 12, 2009 04:53 PMSure, but that's not enough. Anything passed via the emergency clause needs to automatically sunset in a year. Surely a year is long enough to cover any emergency and allow the legislature to bring a more carefully-planned bill to a vote!
Posted by: Kirk Parker on December 12, 2009 09:07 PMThese same lefties seem to have no such outrage when the Seattle Mayor hires spokespeople in the $100K+ salary range, don't seem to worry about all the full page ads purchased by Sound Transit, etc.
At least Eyemans salary comes out of the pockets of people who really support him, instead of from tax dollars extorted from the people through tax dollars better spent on police, fire, schools and roads.
Posted by: johnny on December 13, 2009 08:40 AMIf one was in it for the money, it would seem a no-brainer to line up on the side of the $3.5 million.
It's yet another classic case of projection by the left.
Posted by: travis t on December 13, 2009 09:45 AM