This year’s ballot is dominated by advisory votes — 70 percent of the front page.
OLYMPIA, Nov. 4.—For all the grinding of teeth you hear in Olympia about the five tax advisory votes that go before Washington voters this year, the state’s political movers and shakers probably ought to be thanking promoter Tim Eyman for forcing them to the ballot. If it wasn’t for those votes that won’t change a thing, most voters might be hard-pressed to come up with a reason to invest a postage stamp.
A handful of big local contests aside — in Seattle, the Kitsap Peninsula, Whatcom County and the tiny city of SeaTac – there really aren’t that many big draws in this year’s election. There are major questions of interest to insiders, of course. Will the congressional shutdown scuttle an otherwise easy victory for Republican Jan Angel over Democrat Nathan Schlicher in a Kitsap Peninsula Senate race? Will Seattle voters give Senate Democratic Leader Ed Murray a new job? Two ballot measures are being watched nationally, a $15 an hour minimum wage in the city of SeaTac and a measure that would make this state the first to require labels on genetically modified foods. But even though some $30 million has been spent on the latter contest, it appears the real challenge for the yes-and-no campaigns has been getting anyone to care.
Thousands of smaller-level local races appear on the Tuesday ballot, of course, from city council to fire commissioner, but those aren’t the stuff that record turnout is made of. Small wonder, then, that the Secretary of State’s office in Olympia is predicting a bare 51 percent participation rate in Tuesday’s off-year election.
You can try to identify the big themes in this year’s election – is it out-of-state money? Is it that one might discern national implications? But the striking thing that Washington State Wire has noted is the astounding number of friends and relatives and political neophytes who have been calling to try to make sense out of the five tax advisory votes that dominate the first page of the ballot. They mean so little – and yet they seem to dominate watercooler conversation. One puzzled voter asks Washington State Wire, “What on Earth are these about?” Kind of tells the story of this year’s election right there: The least-important votes are doing more to stimulate conversation than all the millions of dollars of campaign spending this season.
Here’s a rundown on what’s hot this year – and don’t worry, we’ll explain those statewide advisory votes in a moment, giving them all the attention they are due. It may be more than you might think. But first, the votes with impact.
Fresh From the Golden State
I-522 supporter sports sticker at legislative hearing.
I-522, this year’s big-money labeling contest, is favored by food activists, organic-food-industry business interests, and those who suspect the worst of agribusiness and bioscience is making its second appearance on the national stage. The measure would require the labeling of food products made with genetically modified ingredients – perhaps as much as 70 percent of the products now sold on supermarket shelves. It is a repeat of a similar campaign, Prop. 37, which failed in the Golden State last year by a vote of 52-48.
Clearly this fight wasn’t grown in Washington. Of the $30 million raised by both sides, just $2.6 million comes from within Washington state. Big business interests are spending heavily to promote it and bigger business interests are spending even more to defeat it. The no-side, which last week set a record for fund-raising by an individual campaign, has raised $22 million; on the yes side, nearly $6 million comes from out-of-state businesses and activists. Already activists are gathering signatures for a similar fight next year in Oregon, underscoring the national nature of the campaign.
The official campaign calls it a right-to-know measure and it has struggled to remain on message while supporters and even the language of the initiative itself charge that the now-commonplace practice of tinkering with plant DNA for better yields is a hazard to human health. It is an argument that would be difficult to win, as no scientific studies have documented harm from genetically modified crops, and no one has ever gotten sick from eating them. Campaign debate has been diverted by extraneous issues – such as whether members of the Grocery Manufacturers Association properly reported their $11 million in campaign donations, a potentially nasty case that will be resolved after the election is over.
But just as in California, opponents have unleashed what sounds like a winning argument – the measure will increase the price of food. One report from the Washington Research Council indicates that it will raise the price of food for the typical family by $450 a year, because food manufacturers will reformulate products for the Washington market to avoid the stigma of a genetically-modified label. Key indicator here is polling conducted by Stuart Elway of Seattle: Just before the TV advertising hit, it showed the measure winning 66-21; after a month-long blitz, the lead had plummeted to 46-42, and support was continuing to fall. Demonstrating that among Washington voters support was shallow, knowledge was non-existent, and all it took was a bit of advertising to knock it off the shelf.
Kitsap Senate Race Could be Referendum on Congress
State Rep. Jan Angel, R-Port Orchard, is challenging Sen. Nathan Schlicher, D-Gig Harbor, in the season’s hottest legislative race.
A single legislative race may tell plenty about the public mood regarding the shutdown of Congress in Washington, D.C. last month. Out on the Kitsap Peninsula, Senate appointee Nathan Schlicher, D-Gig Harbor, faces a challenge from state Rep. Jan Angel, R-Port Orchard — and at least until Republicans put Congress in a stall, it was looking like a slam-dunk for Angel. She came out on top in the August primary, 55-45. And even though it has become the biggest-spending race in state history at $2.43 million, it is hard to change numbers like that. But around the statehouse it is widely whispered that polling took a dive when Congress went into its meltdown last month — and the race likely will be seen as a bellwether if Schlicher pulls it out.
Schlicher, a Tacoma emergency-room physician, was named to the seat last year after Democrat Derek Kilmer won his race for Congress. The race won’t alter control of the Senate – Republicans might pick up one seat, but they already hold major influence in the Legislature’s upper chamber due to a majority coalition of two Democrats and the Senate’s 23 Republicans. Yet a victory for the Republicans in the 26th district would expand their margin and make it easier to establish outright control in 2014. There also is the Tom Steyer factor – the California billionaire who makes climate change his big issue has spent an astounding $455,000 to support independent campaigns for Schlicher, and his spending has produced charges by Angel that Steyer is trying to “buy the election.” Whether that will neutralize public dismay over the congressional troubles is a question for Tuesday. Of course, one might also say the election is a referendum on the disastrous launch of Obamacare — in which case the whole thing might be a wash.
New Job for Murray?
State Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, chats with reporters during a break in legislative action.
Will someone give Ed Murray a new job? It’s certainly looking that way. The state Senate Democratic Leader is leading polls in the race for Seattle mayor, and incumbent Mike McGinn, who has antagonized Queen City voters with his green-minded ways, appeared weak indeed during the August primary. Both were roughly tied in the August primary, Murray with 30 percent and McGinn with 27, but one might argue that the other 43 percent represented an anti-McGinn vote. Seattle’s last mayor, Greg Nickels, was bounced after a disastrous snowfall left Seattleites skidding in the streets, and McGinn ads say he believes in snowplows. But the decidedly car-hostile McGinn administration, which has done everything from jacking up parking rates to trying to reduce the capacity of existing roads and highway projects, has managed finally to go too far for even the most liberal of Washington cities.
SeaTac measure would impose $15 minimum wage.
Meanwhile, the city of SeaTac faces an initiative that could strip Seattle of its leftier-than-all reputation – a measure that would increase the minimum wage for airport-related businesses to $15 an hour. It is the first real test of a national labor-activist campaign for a $15 minimum wage — SeaTac is the first place where such a measure has made the ballot. Just 12,000 registered voters will make a decision that will affect the multi-billion enterprise that is SeaTac International airport. Hoteliers in the airport district have raised fears that travelers will flee when room rates are increased; the measure, backed by the Service Employees International Union among other unions, also contains provisions that would boost union organizing efforts and make it more difficult for airlines to farm out work to non-union contractors.
In Whatcom County, a proposed coal port for Cherry Point is the issue. A slate of four candidates in the non-partisan race is backed by the local Democratic Party and the Washington Conservation Voters, and while they aren’t saying which way they would vote, there is plenty of nudging and winking on that score, and a flier from the greens promises its slate will say no. Presumably the environmental groups got a few straight answers from their candidates before they decided where to spend their money. Meanwhile, four other candidates have support from the local Rs, and while the greens are trying to make an issue of the fact that the R slate has independent-campaign support from coal companies, the outside-interest argument appears to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
One other local vote may be of statewide interest: Yakima will decide whether to require a two-thirds vote of its city council for tax increases. The measure is another test of the popularity of supermajority requirements for tax increases – if any was needed, after Washington voters imposed them by initiative on the Legislature five times in the last two decades. The rule was thrown out by the state Supreme Court this year on constitutional grounds. A yes vote in Yakima will renew calls for a constitutional amendment.
A Nasty-Gram from Voters
Initiative promoter Tim Eyman.
Which brings us back to those advisory votes. They are the only thing that every Washington voter will see, unless you count I-522 and another ballot measure, I-517, which would establish protections for initiative signature gatherers when circulating petitions.
Because the advisory votes take up 70 percent of the space on the front page of the ballot, because they occupy a third of the official state voters’ pamphlet, and because the description is rather dense and a bit hard to follow – the average voter might get the idea that they are the weightiest thing before them this year. Actually, the votes won’t have an impact at all, except to give Washington voters a chance to send a nasty-gram to the Legislature. Back in 2007, initiative promoter Tim Eyman’s Initiative 960 – one of those two-thirds-vote measures – also required an advisory vote of the people when lawmakers raise taxes without a public vote. The advisory votes won’t change anything — no matter what happens, the taxes remain on the books.
This year lawmakers passed five tax increases worth nearly $900 million over 10 years – including rather obscure and difficult to follow measures regarding telecommunications taxation and to reinstate an estate tax that had been partially thrown out by the court. It ought to be noted that these weren’t the highly controversial business taxes urged by many Democrats to fund big new spending in education – the Senate Majority Coalition nixed that idea. These had support from both parties.
And given the disinclination of voters to say yes to taxes – particularly those that require more than a sentence to explain – one might expect them to say no. That’s what they did the first time the advisory votes showed up on the ballot last year – even a hit on out-of-state banks, a popular target, got a no-vote. Because literally nothing is at stake, no one has bothered mounting a campaign. And yet, even if the votes are nothing more than a message to lawmakers, Eyman maintains it is a valuable one. A resounding no might make lawmakers think twice – particularly when a transportation proposal is expected to come before them the next time they meet. “I think these votes will have a big impact on the transportation tax package,” he says. “We’ll get a better feel for how the public is thinking.”
Others call them a waste of money. The extra pages in the voters pamphlet cost $120,000. The public doesn’t understand the context, argues House Finance Chairman Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, nor can it be expected to do so. “It is not an authentic representation of an educated voice, given the complexity of the policy issues behind the measures,” he says. “That is not being patronizing – it is being detailed and looking at facts and math and data. That telecommunications bill was 20 years in the making.” Lawmakers know better, he says, and votes like those don’t matter in the slightest. Better to junk them entirely, he argues – unless you can figure out a way to put spending decisions on the ballot at the same time.
But without ’em– what would there be to keep Washington voters paying attention?
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