Say WA? Evergreen State ping
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Posted on 03/14/2008 11:36:59 AM PDT by stubernx98
Coulda been worse.
With mega-majority control by the Democrats of the House, Senate, and Governor's mansion, it's critical to highlight the good, not just the bad:
* The legislative jihad against the initiative process totally imploded thanks to all of us working together. Bills that would have shut down the signature gathering process were clearly illegal, unconstitutional, and aimed at endangering citizens -- that's why the Democrats pushed so hard for their approval. But six weeks on non-stop emails, phone calls, faxes, and letters from all of you -- and scathing editorials and columns in every newspaper -- successfully beat back these anti-initiative bills. And every time they attack the initiative process, Olympia only juices up our supporters -- donations go up and signatures pour in.
* I-960's email alert system -- requiring 10 year cost projections for any bill that increases taxes and fees and identifying legislators who are sponsoring them and voting for them -- has been a magnificent success. The moaning, whining, and complaining by legislators for the public disclosure of their family-budget-busting agenda was proof of its effectiveness. If they don't like it, it's gotta be good. FOX NEWS did a national news story on it and reported that Washington is now a national leader on transparency and public involvement thanks to I-960.
* One of the provisions in I-960 -- the advisory vote for 'emergency' tax increases -- was a clear message to Olympia to stop making bills 'referendum proof' by slapping emergency clauses on them. We predicted that following the passage of I-960, the Legislature's use of the emergency clause 'would drop like a rock.' We're still waiting for a total but early signs are that we were successful on this front.
* Bill to gut Initiative 900's funding for performance audits -- it passed the Senate, got in the final budget in the House, but it did 'die' in the final days of the session. It is appalling that Democrats would target such a successful program. Auditor Sonntag's team has completed nine audits so far, made 434 recommendations, totaling $3.2 billion in savings, including a criminal investigation of the Port of Seattle. Nonetheless, Democrats pushed this anti-900, anti-Sonntag bill that would have diverted audit funding to paying for the agencies' defense against the audits. It was clearly intended to drain I-900's audit funding so there would be fewer audits. Again, the bill is dead for this session.
* Democrats are suing the voters because they don't like the fact that it's now tougher to raise taxes because of voter-approved I-960. The two-thirds-for-tax-increases requirement will be defended by Attorney General Rob McKenna. He and his team did an aggressive (and successful) job defending I-960 from a pre-election lawsuit that tried to keep it off the ballot and we're confident he'll fight even harder on this post-election challenge. The Democrats' request for a quick judicial ruling was denied by the court -- so a decision is many months and possibly years away.
* Finally, I-960 said state agencies couldn't unilaterally jack up fees anymore, instead the Legislature had to do it. No more autopilot fee increases. The Democrats did everything they could to avoid it, but in the end, I-960's spotlight reported that they hiked fees nearly $1 billion over the next 10 years. Democrats showed complete insensitivity to the fact that a $100 fee costs just as much as a $100 tax, and so they need to treat fees just as seriously as taxes. They didn't. But at least they had to take a recorded vote so now the voters know who are the anti-taxpayer politicians
Hi Tim! I hear you’re still giving ‘em hell in WA. I’m long gone, but wish you well in future endeavors.
(District 46 Senate, 1998)
Washington state ping...
Eyman is vilified and demonized throughout Western Washington, which means he is hitting them where they live.
His first bullet point revolves around the efforts the ‘rats took to disenfranchise the entire initiative process. Like everything else that they attempt, it was ill-conceived, counter-productive, and clearly unconstitutional (and a miserable failure for the Dhimmis!).
Eyman is a scrapper and I wish more Washingtonians were like him...
We’re trying, but we have 2 stupid senators and plethora of super, liberal dems in the state.
I was an original Eyman revolutionary. I collected hundreds of signatures for his first 5 initiatives. We did some good damage to the beast. Car Tax. I-200 with Carlson.
Good times.
I have alway wondered about the paradox that we pass reaonsbly conservative initiatives but then elect a liberal brain dead legislature with liberal representative coming from many parts of the state, not just Seattle.
I always wondered if WA state voters feel more comfortable electing liberal knowing they can probably leash them in, via the initiative prcess
God Bless him, I remember when my $500 car tags got knocked to $30. The state has added “fees” since and now they are up to $43., I think we need to revisit those “fees”.
We live in a republic, not a democracy. We elect legislators to represent us. The morons in Washington who keep sending morons to sit in the legislature must be satisfied since they keep sending the same one back again and again. The “conservative” initiatives only pass and liberal legislators get elected because the most voters think that their guy is doing a good job but the “other” legislators are running amok.
You'd think that this state would eventually outgrow the populist/farmer mindset that seems to be in the DNA of all of our institutions. You should have heard the pissing and moaning about finally having a closed primary and, gasp, the necessity of declaring a party affiliation in order to vote for that party's candidates.
There are days when the weather and politics makes me wish that Bill Boeing had chosen another state in which to make his fortune.
NAMSMAN sends.
Say WA? Evergreen State ping
FReepmail sionnsar if you want on or off this ping list.
Ping sionnsar if you see a Washington state related thread.
We really need to hold Olympia accountable, and a good way would be to start counting how much people like him have saved us vs. how much the Queen & her Flying Monkeys have cost us, along with the CRIMINAL WASTE the State Auditor has found AND GET OUR STATE GOP TO START CHANTING THE NUMBERS TO ANY PRESS THAT'LL PRINT IT!!
(If they got the guts)
Not here in the Puget Sound region. They're all lying libs.
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