In my post on I-1053, I wrote, “I’m not a fan of the initiative process, but I think we do need to respect the will of the people.” This post will expand on that a little. Initiatives are simply a tool to make laws. We shouldn’t treat them as anything more or less.
The biggest problem is that they are a blunt tool. The legislative process has hearings and amendments. Better (or worse) ideas make it into the final product. With initiatives, the final outcome is the same one people were collecting signatures on months and months prior. It doesn’t take into concern the opposition. You don’t need to talk to attorneys to see if it passes constitutional muster, or look into other ways of doing something. It is all or nothing.
And this all or nothing approach tends to hamper debate. If an initiative passes, then it’s the will of the people. This despite the fact that the people didn’t get any alternatives. Their will was based on if they approved the language of the initiative or not, not on what their most preferred alternative might have been. That has real value, and should be respected, but we should also keep it in perspective. And when an initiative fails, it often kills momentum for whatever was being worked for, like the income tax (although, I’m not sure how much momentum it actually had, and oddly it hasn’t done much about liquor privatization).
Another problem is the influence of money. Most of these Eyman initiatives in recent years have got on the ballot with the financing largely of one man. Of course, most normal people can’t afford to do that. And when they do get on the ballot, even political junkies like me get sick of seeing all the ads and getting mailings. Money does play too large a role in the initiative process. Still, money also plays too large a role in the legislative process. The rich and powerful will use their power in the crafting of laws, no matter how we make those laws.
Because of all this money, often the more grassroots voices the initiative process was envisioned to give a voice get shouted out. It’s tougher for grassroots signature gathering efforts to get a foothold amid the paid signature gathering. It’s tougher for the opposition to raise the money to compete with some of the corporate campaigns we’ve seen recently.
Still, even for all the faults in the process, people still do get to vote on specific issues, and that is rather remarkable. So, how do we judge an initiative? The same way we’d judge any law: who wins, who loses, who it helps, and who it hurts.
Initiatives dealing with budgetary issues are nonsense. To be frank, voters don’t pay enough attention to state budget issues to make wise decisions about initiatives addressing such things. We were founded as a representative democracy, and I kind of think that model isn’t bad. Let the legislature, with executive veto power, and possible judicial review, form our laws. Not a fan of initiatives, personally. If an initiative deals with animal trapping, like one did a few years ago, I can handle that. But, budgetary issues? No way.
How about a BALANCE THE BUDGET STATE, LOCAL, AND ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY OBAMASPENDUSTOTHEPOINTOFBANKRUPTCY
2008 defecit 400B
2011 Interest on the Obama defecit 400B
DUH
How about a BALANCE THE BUDGET STATE, LOCAL, AND ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY OBAMASPENDUSTOTHEPOINTOFBANKRUPTCY
2008 defecit 400B
2011 Interest on the Obama defecit 400B
DUH
Gold, Silver, and commodities are soaring as IDIOT IN CHIEF IS IN OVERDRIVE SPENDING!
The Dollar is in the tank
Home values are in the tank
Employment is in the tank
And Idiot in chief is racking up Trillions upon trillions in is new debt
GET a F’n Clue
You and I cannot spend twice what you take in, without defaulting. This IDIOT knows no end to his damn spending…BAR NO OTHER
Gold and Silver are Sky High…WHY because the dollar has lost 8.6% in just the last year of Mr. F’n Magic’s RULE
I’m all in, and making a killing, while you idiots got no F’n clue
This IDIOT is going to bankrupt America!
@ 3, 4, 5
Okay, so lets raise the top level taxation rates back to what they were in 1970.
The United States was a lender nation until Reagan was elected. We’ve been in debt ever since. He all but eliminated corporate taxation and raised the tax rates on the lower third of the income earning population. All he did was shift the tax burden onto the lowest levels and start the nation on the road to Fascism.
Initiatives are the only way for the people to get popular legislation that the government body is too partisan or beholden to moneyed interests to pass. It’s not a perfect system, but it is a worthwhile one. Wikipedia has a list of all the initiatives. Many of those are things that simply never would have made it through the legislature. They’re why we have sensible(more than most states anyway) districting, most food isn’t subject to sales tax, our minimum wage has been higher than the nation average for decades, etc.
If we made it illegal to pay for signatures, or for corporations to sponsor initiatives, it would go a long way towards returning the process to the original intent. It would also mean we’d only see a fraction of the current initiatives.
My only real complaint with the initiative process is the same as with basically every local issue/race. The media coverage is generally terrible, leaving the majority of votes to be decided based on what’s in the voter pamphlet. Printing costs restrict these to a tiny paragraph for and against, which devolves the whole issue into who can write the best talking points.
@3,4,5: And Reagan, Bush, and Bush, account for more than $7T of the deficit. Where was your complaining then?
But wait, one-time spending to get us out of Bush’s recession is the real problem . . . not the systematic borrow-and-spend mentality of Republicans.
@2,3,4,5 I don’t accept advice on the federal deficit from anyone who can’t even spell “deficit.”
Historically, initiatives enabled progressives and populists to get around oligarch-controlled legislatures and enact reforms. This lesson has not been lost on the Oligarch Class, which — through people like multimilionaire Mike Dunmire — is funding efforts to turn the initiative process topsy-turvy and use it as an instrument for perpetuating the power of the Oligarch Class.
As for whether voters can be trusted with the power to legislate directly, one needs only to recall the circus a few years ago wherein Washington voters approved two side-by-side initiatives to improve teacher pay and decrease class sizes — and, in the same election on the same ballot, defeated the tax increase needed to implement them.
Americans will always vote in favor of “something for nothing.” They will never be in favor of anything unless it’s free. You can take that to the bank every time. The something-for-nothing mentality is deeply entrenched in American culture as corruption is ingrained in Republican Party culture. (Hmmm, I wonder if there’s a relationship?) Americans believe they’re entitled to get things without paying for them.
3,4,5 — Sheep, bleat, sheep, bleat, sheep, bleat, sheep, bleat, sheep, bleat, sheep, bleat, sheep, bleat, sheep, bleat, sheep, bleat …
The initiative process is being harmed by the same kinds of people who spray their nonsensical diarrhea all over these comments sections: private individuals who willingly subvert the demographic process at the behest of the political or financial overlords. The Kochs, CFG = the Tea Party, ALEC. Dunmire = Eyman. It’s getting to the point I can’t even stand to scroll through it all. And obviously it’s not just here; it’s EVERYWHERE. Fake FB accts, fake Twitter handles, even the Air Force is getting in on the act:
http://www.ajc.com/news/report.....81763.html
People have long been willingly to screw each other over for a cash prize, it’s not the citizen initiative process that’s fucked-up, the citizens who help manipulate it are.
Carl and oxbrain @7:
I’ve been thinking about the initiative process lately while watching the Republican governors in the Midwest states. Particularly the situations in Michigan and Wisconsin, where governors are seizing/exercising autocratic powers.
Could the initiative process here save us if McKenna (and a Republican majority in the legislature) were elected and followed the new Republican model, given the disadvantage popular legislation has against the moneyed interests who want no democracy for anyone but themselves?
Washington State’s clean energy act was passed as an initiative after failing to be passed into law by the useless tools we send to Olympia.
@14
The initiative process has already helped save us(to some extent) from the tax-n-spend democrats running this state.
Of course they have already proven that they have no problem subverting the people’s will by working around some initiatives.
@15
and many of those tools are either stupid or crooked…or both.
Hey a 70% income tax rate for the rich was FINE under Richard Nixon (he wasn’t a commie or leftist pinko) so lets go back to that. Unless…OH MY GOD…Nixon wasn’t born in America and was part of the secret Kenyan plot to take over America!! It ALL makes sense now! (to anti-reality, anti-science, anti-fact Republicans).
The deficit under Bush was not $400B. That didn’t COUNT the Iraq war (which wasn’t included on the ‘official’ budget, because Republicans used Enron accounting). And the first trillion under Obama was FROM the end of the Bush budget . TARP and the initial rescue plan was BUSH and the Republicans…the unpaid for tax cuts were Republicans…the unpaid for Medicare expansion was Republicans…the unpaid for wars were Republicans…but NOW after 8 years of spending like drunken sailors, NOW they care about deficits! ROTFLMAO. Damn facts!
Remember when Dick Cheney was asked about the Republicans crazy spending? His response? “Ronald Reagan showed us that deficits don’t matter”. But NOW you care? LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL
@17
I think we, for the most part, have good folks down in Oly. The problem isn’t left or right, it isn’t that they’re crooked, it’s that they’re late adopters. On the early-mid-late adopter scale of things almost every single person in elected office in Olympia is either a mid or late adopter. This is why we need the initiative process. Our state ledg. will never pass forward looking legislation like the state wide smoking ban or the Clean Energy Initiative, because they’re a cabal of late adopters. If we want to pass forward looking legislation in WA we have to do it ourselves.
@19
two more words to describe Oly: Group-Think.
@16: Can’t say I follow closely enough, but my impression is that most, if not all, of the recent tax-cutting initiatives were not popular ones per se, but were written and promoted by the oligarchs through their proxies and astroturf organizations, in the way Carl suggests.
20,21
Yep & yep.
@20 Bit anti-reality and anti-fact again huh.
Yeah, because that’s something unique to evil old Democratic run states. States like Texas, which are run by Republican governors and Republican house/senate with such a majority that Democrats can’t force ANYTHING through…are magical paradises! Heck, I bet Texas is not only in the black but has a surplus of BILLIONS of dollars a years (given their oil and Republican pro-business climate!)
What? Reality is the opposite of that? Shocking. Texas is massively in debt to tune of about $23 BILLION. Huh. Hey Republicans, where’s your magic? Practice what you preach. Just spend less. It’s Texas, you can’t blame the Democrats for this, it’s YOUR state to control. Just stop spending too much. Live within your means. Cut waste. Blah blah blah blah. Huh. Funny, they can’t. Why is that?
The initiative process sounds like the only way marijuana will ever be legalized in this state. I know I would surely support an initiative that calls for the legalization of marijuana, even if the federal government doesn’t change its laws regarding this commonly-growing weed.
@23
I never said it was unique to Democrats.
You fail once.
Washington’s budget problems are worse per capita than Texas’ are.
You fail twice.
Last I checked, we live in Washington. I dont care what happens in Texas.
You fail three times.
Hat trick one thread. TEH IMMPRUZIVE!
You have been served.
@14
Yes and no. We could pass initiatives directly un-doing whatever an unpopular legislature does, but pretty much any initiative can be reverted after a few years or bypassed much sooner if the language is ambiguous in any way.
The initiative process is also extremely slow compared to what the legislature can do in a shit storm like what happened in WI. The situation would be old news by the time the initiative actually came to a vote.
@23
No one’s said it’s unique to Washington or to Democratic lead states. Group-think’s the norm in most governmental bodies and media right now. Jay Inslee and Mary Vernor are good examples of exceptions to that rule.
I think pastors should be required to pass a psychiatric evaluation before they’re allowed to provide pastoral counseling to parishioners. To prevent them from, you know, raping little girls. Ya gotta watch out for these self-proclaimed “Godly” types.
@28
and that has to do with initiatives how?
Syria’s ruthless dictatorship continued to kill unarmed civilians yesterday, with government security forces firing live ammunition at funeral processions for the dozens of people killed by government security forces in previous days.
The Syrian regime isn’t legitimate. Syria has long been listed as a prime sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. government. They’re nothing but a gang of criminals subjugating a people through arrests, torture, and murder. They deserve to be strung from telephone poles.
Which is exactly what they’re afraid of. Apart from not wanting to lose the power, wealth, and privileges that accrue to those at the top of a corrupt and autocratic regime, they fear those whom they’ve been killing may turn on them and kill them if they get the chance. There’s probably considerable justification for their anxiety. So what. They’ve got it coming to them.
The U.S. should actively provide covert aid to opponents of the Syrian regime including money, arms, and supplies. From the beginning of time, an immutable rule of human society has been that people have a right to defend themselves. That’s hard to do against a military dictatorship unless you’re armed too.
If Syria’s thug dictators and military men want to fight their own people, then let’s arm the Syrian people, and make those pussies find out what a real fight is like. One in which both sides suffer casualties, in which their guys get killed. Any coward can kill unarmed protesters — and tha’s what these guys are, pussies and cowards. They’re not man enough to risk their skins in a fair fight.
The Syrian regime is trying to impose a new blackout on their murderous rampage against their own citizens by kicking out journalists. That’s probably not going to work. In this age of cellphones that take videos they’re not going to get away with keeping the rest of the world in the dark about what they’re up to.
The Syrian protests started when government thugs arrested teenagers for putting up anti-regime graffiti. In Syria, where political opposition isn’t allowed and anyone who speaks out against repression is routinely arrested, jailed, tortured, and killed, such an act is enough to get even kids “disappeared.”
The Syrian regime’s thin skin and inability to tolerate dissent shows us how insecure that country’s dictator feels — and how fragile the regime is. It might not take much more than a nudge from a feather to topple it. We should be giving the protesters sledgehammers.
Many of my fellow liberals are against the death penalty in all circmstances. Not me! I’m in favor of killing dictators who murder innocent people. They deserve it and the world is better off with those monsters.
History shows us that dictatorships and autocratic regimes don’t last. Sooner or later, they all fall. What we’re seeing now is thoroughly fed up Arab populations rising up against the autocrats who have long held sway over the Middle East and northern Africa. You can force people to live in abject poverty so you can wallow in comfort for only so long. What history demonstrates over and over is that all autocrats eventually get toppled.
Too often, other governments — including ours — have offered sanctuary to these assholes. After killing their citizens and pillaging their countries, they’re sent into comfortable exile to live out the rest of their lives in unimaginable luxury. Know what this does? It creates a powerful incentive to kill and pillage.
Every one of these fuckers should be killed when they fall from power. Every single one, without exception. When wanna-bes realize that becoming an autocrat guarantees you’ll meet a gruesome end, then maybe fewer tinpot colonels wlll aspire to become Stalins, Hitlers, or Mussolinis. Photos of il Duce’s dead body hanging from a lamp post should be posted in every third-world military barracks.
Syria’s Assad may be signing his own death warrant right now. Human nature being what it is, when you murder people, their friends tend to murder back. I’ve got a feeling these are Assad’s final days.
And when Assad falls, not a single one of his security thugs should be given asylum in the U.S. Let them all hang from lamp posts in downtown Damascus.
“Vengeance is mine!” sayeth the Lord. True enough. The protesters in various countries just want to borrow it for a little while. They’ll return it to God when they’re done using it.
nobody reads your garbage.
@29 It doesn’t. All these posts are supposed to be in the “Friday Night” thread. My browser is really fucked up since my computer shop installed new security software. It keeps resetting, jumping from one thread to another, closing itself, and shit like that.
@34 I’ll bet money that I’m 100 times more popular on this blog than you are. How much are you willing to put up?
@34 (continued) So now you’re an apologist for murdering dictators and terrorists like Assad? That’s no surprise. We’ve understood for a long time who people like you crawl under the sheets with.
Rodent@11
‘Americans will always vote in favor of “something for nothing.” They will never be in favor of anything unless it’s free. You can take that to the bank every time.’
Rodent, you old fart, good to see you can still collect your thoughts long enough to describe how the Dems build up their parasite vote base.