Revitalize Our Democratic Traditions To Enact A Bi-Partisan Budget

On February 28th, the Washington State Supreme Court announced a ruling that struck down the voter-approved Initiative 1185, which required a two-thirds majority to raise legislative taxes.

This decision came after the League of Education Voters (LEV), the Washington Education Association (WEA) and House Democrats along with a few activists, sued taxpayers to have the initiative declared unconstitutional. This lawsuit, initiated against overwhelming statewide voter approval, proves the need for citizens to hold current legislators accountable and to elect those in the future who will constitutionally enshrine the two-thirds threshold for raising taxes.

Over the past 20 years, whenever Washington voters were presented with the opportunity to impose a limit, they approved supermajority measures for raising taxes. In some convoluted way the initiative process has thus become a justification for a majority of voters to elect candidates who share their social views, but have contempt for Washington’s fiscal conservatism.

Because so much is at stake in our state, leadership from both parties is necessary for sustainable budgets. We must revitalize our democratic traditions in order to elect representatives that respect the will of the voters and who will form budgets in a collaborative manner. Voters not only want their wishes respected, they have demonstrated that they want the ideals of both parties to be included in the budget creation process.

Some pundits have erroneously argued that an amendment will subject budgeting to a tyranny of the minority. Don’t be fooled. It is the invented concern of the anti-democratic crowd in power who don’t share voter’s fiscal views. This distrust of voters is not just limited to the electorate’s stance on financial priorities. It is also visible during the campaign season, when voters select their representatives. 

In 2012, I was a first-time candidate for a state Senate, running on a platform of fiscal restraint in Olympia and economic prosperity for all Washington. Although I ran as a Republican, the opposition to my candidacy originated from both parties because I challenged an incumbent. In the process of the election campaign, my youthful indiscretions from 20 years ago turned into a smear, a near pogrom, by my opponent’s supporters. The effort went so far that a political reporter sympathetic to my opponent used the platform of his major wire service to write highly embellished, negative articles that were further exploited in direct mailings and on the Internet.

Political operatives who have mastered the art of the “big lie” are actively involved in our elections. Their contempt is not limited against the opposing candidates as it is against the voters themselves. Campaign insiders don’t focus on issues. Apparently, in their view, voters can’t be trusted to make the right choices. In America’s politics, the tendency among candidates and interest groups is to pursue electoral victory above all else. In fact they treat politics as war. This destructive attitude runs counter to our basic democratic values and ultimately inhibits our state government’s ability to reach common-sense solutions that capture the best thinking of both parties.

Now, it’s up to us. Voters must act over the next few election cycles to demand that their candidates for the legislature support the concept that a supermajority is needed to raise taxes. If they don’t follow the public will, then we should thank them for their services and elect new leaders who do. 

More important than many realize, if Washington is to move from unsustainable spending patterns to a budget that is predictable, we must engage the clutch that allows spending to slow to match natural revenue growth.