Last week, the Washington Supreme Court ruled that Sound Transit could continue to collect its car-tabs tax, which had been repealed by a statewide vote of the people. Legally, the court was probably correct, but it was not fair to taxpayers.
The case was about Initiative 776, sponsored by Tim Eyman. This page did not support I-776, but in 2002, Washington’s voters did, and it became law.
I can only assume that the Seattle Times editorial board is fully aware that I-776 failed within the Sound Transit taxing district by an impressive 43% to 57% margin, so when the Times complains that the Supreme Court decision is “not fair to taxpayers,” I’m not exactly sure which taxpayers they’re talking about. Is it “not fair to taxpayers” in the Seattle and North King County subarea of Sound Transit who not only pay the bulk of the cost of the light rail project, but who voted against I-776 in even larger numbers? Or is it “not fair to taxpayers” in Eastern Washington who… um… don’t pay any tax in support of light rail and who didn’t even have a local MVET tax to begin with, but who nonetheless voted in favor of I-776, mostly as a big fuck you to Seattle?
I-776 was a statewide initiative that promised to kill Sound Transit’s light rail project, but which overwhelmingly failed amongst those voters who actually paid the voter-approved local MVET tax it repealed. So how could one possibly describe the court’s decision as “not fair to taxpayers,” assuming one defines “taxpayers” as the voters who actually, um… pay taxes?
Hmm. Or to put it another way for the benefit of the Seattle Times editorial board: I-776 was soundly rejected by those voters who actually paid the tax it repealed, and any suggestion to the contrary would be misleading.
It is one thing to mislead your readers about, say, the Swedish tax system or a political candidate. But it’s another thing to mislead your readers about themselves.
Last time I checked, the residents of the Sound Transit district don’t have any initiative or referendum rights regarding Sound Transit that can be exercised at the local level. The only initiative and referendum rights are those under state law, which have to be exercised at the state level. I-776 wasn’t written to do what Tim Eyman wanted it to do, but it was enacted into law by the only group of voters possessing initiative and referendum rights over the project.
Maybe if the state legislature amended the Sound Transit law to allow voters in the Sound Transit to have initiative and referendum rights at the local level, your arguments would carry more moral authority.
Richard Pope says:
Last time I checked, the residents of the Sound Transit district don’t have any initiative or referendum rights regarding Sound Transit that can be exercised at the local level.
Clearly they don’t. That’s why they were subjected to the injustice of voters outside their locality attempting to tell them they couldn’t tax themselves.
Saying that Tim Eyman had to put forward a lousy ballot measure to do his car tab damage, so too bad for those in the ST district is an argument that has far lees moral authority than Goldy’s.
It’s a good thing that we have a Supreme Court that will protect us from the tyranny of an ignorant majority.
“less moral authority than Goldy’s”
Geez, Goldy, everyone already knows that Frank Blethen’s rag is only good for wrapping fish guts in.* They didn’t even expose Marc Dinsmore’s cozy business dealings with John Oppenheimer; the P-I scooped them on that one. Not that Frank would ever tell us about corrupt port dealings with Republican businessmen anyway.
But, much as I hate to tell you this, the Fish Wrapper’s editorial does make a valid point. Namely, that if the voters in the ST taxing district HAD voted to repeal the Sound Transit tax — which the court presumably would have invalidated on the same grounds, using the same reasoning — the court should have let stand at least as much of the initiative as didn’t actually impair the bonds. Which is another way of saying the voters have the right to repeal taxes by way of the initiative process.
I know you don’t like the initiative, Goldy, and prefer a restrictive rather than expansive interpretation of the people’s right to legislate. As I’ve said before, I don’t agree with you on that. You haven’t lived here long enough, and just don’t understand our western ways. Back in the old days, if we were going to lynch a horse thief, we took a public vote before launching the guy from the old fir tree. It’s the Western Way: popular democracy. A jury of the whole. That’s the way we traditionally do things around here.
Oh, and did I mention that we took four votes before lynching the horse thief, just to make sure everyone was satisfied of his guilt; then, after lynching him, we took another vote and decided not to hang him after all.
2 “It’s a good thing that we have a Supreme Court that will protect us from the tyranny of an ignorant majority.”
Actually, Harry, we don’t — the Supreme Court wasn’t protecting “us” from anything. The only thing the Supreme Court did was protect the bond holders from welshing borrowers.
4 * If you don’t like my ending a sentence with a preposition: Fuck you! And fuck the armadillo you rode in on, too.
You may take solace that polling the idiots four times equates to justice, but not me. If it weren’t for the SC we’d all get hung.
The Sound Transit example shows how the people’s initiative has been hijacked by anarchists, to the detriment of the people it is supposed to protect.
Personally, I’m kind of wondering how the Supreme Court squared that ruling with the WPPSS ruling a couple of decades ago which said, in effect, that the bond-holders could be left holding the bag when the government decides that it wants to cancel a project.
I guess I’ll have to read the decision.
8 Anarchy isn’t all that bad, compared to GOP government.
8 (continued) At least under anarchy, the victims of mob hangings are randomly selected, and roughly half of them will be Republicans.
9 The court said the bonds were void when issued because the utility districts didn’t have authority to issue them. That’s different from repealing taxes after a government entity has issued valid bonds and contractually pledged to levy taxes to pay the principal and interest. The former case doesn’t involve impairment of contract because there was no valid contract to begin with.
The WPPSS bondholders weren’t left without recourse. The courts allowed them to sue the brokers who sold the bonds and the brokers’ legal advisers.
The key to the WPPSS debacle is the bonds were reviewed by New York-based lawyers who were unaware of the Washington statute that prohibited the utilities from doing what they did. They should have associated local counsel to advise them on any material wrinkles in local law … especially as it turned out there was one.
9 (continued) The situation with the WPPSS bonds was analogous to the Brooklyn Bridge — just because you paid for it doesn’t mean you own it.
Roger @4,
Eyman could have written the initiative to force Sound Transit to use the MVET only to pay off the existing bonds, and as quickly as possible. But he didn’t.
Yet another example of the crappy law we tend to get via the initiative process, because some guy sitting in his bonus room churning out legislation is more than likely to churn out crap.
I-776 repealed the local MVET. If anybody wants to repeal a tax in the future, either by legislation or initiative, all they need to do is write more precise language to deal with this situation.
What the Supremes ruled is that if you sell a bond payable at some date in the future you can collect the tax for that period without regard to any other possible means of paying off the debt.