Much as we hate to say it: Doing nothing is better than doing the wrong thing. This year, both our state's political elite and a group of Seattle activists are presenting the voters with solutions to one of our region's most vexing problems—transportation. The former is touting Referendum 51, a $7.7 billion tax increase for new road construction. The latter wants to spend at least $1.7 billion on a monorail from Ballard to West Seattle. We say no and no again.
That gives us no pleasure. We want to move forward to real transportation solutions, but both of these plans simply head in the wrong direction. Referendum 51 ignores the state's real transportation needs and, instead, offers a package of road pork. The monorail shoves Seattle's collective head in the sand by pursuing a city-only solution when it couldn't be clearer that we need regional mass transit.
We also say no to Tim Eyman's latest lie, Initiative 776, and a money grab by some very worthy people—retired police officers and firefighters—through Initiative 790.
If anyone suggests that we are nattering nabobs of negativism, we must demure. We embrace the reform of the state's unemployment-insurance system, Referendum 53, which protects workers' benefits, and we pick the best candidates in important races for the state Supreme Court and the state Legislature.
Here is the complete, unexpurgated guide to the ballot, with Web links, as only Seattle Weekly can deliver it.
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
7TH DISTRICT
Our choice: Jim McDermott, D-Seattle, seems happier and more relaxed now that he has an administration and a war to oppose. It's as if he's found renewed vigor from the prospect of a good fight. Voters should stay in his corner.
Stan Lippmann, L-Seattle, is a perennial oddball candidate.
The only sign we've seen of Carol Cassady, R-Seattle, is her picture in the Voter's Pamphlet.
www.seattleweekly.com/features/0240/news-berger.shtml
WASHINGTON BALLOT MEASURES
INITIATIVE 776 ($30 VEHICLE TABS, CUT TRANSPORTATION MONEY)
Tim Eyman is a lawmaker— his chamber is the ballot box, and his initiatives are his legislation. The best way to eliminate Eyman from our political lives is simply to vote his measures down. I-776 certainly deserves that fate. It simply adds stupidity on top of the idiocy of Eyman's previous tax- cutting measures by trying to eliminate taxes on cars and trucks that pay for road repair and voter-approved funds for express buses, commuter rail, and light rail from Sound Transit. Not only is it a terrible idea, I-776 is probably unconstitutional to boot. Boot it: Vote No.
www.seattleweekly.com/features/0243/news-howland.shtml
INITIATIVE 790 (CHANGES TO THE POLICE AND FIRE PENSION SYSTEM)
Retired police and firefighters have a real problem: Payments from their retirement plans are inadequate and the plans don't include health insurance or disability. A lot of us share these problems, but few of us perform work that is as socially important and as dangerous as public-safety workers. Frustrated by years of failure at lobbying the Legislature, the public-safety forces have taken to the initiative process. Like so many others who have tried it, they have simply written a bad law—albeit for a good cause. I-790 gives public-safety employees control of their pensions, but it fails to identify any funding mechanism for the inevitable benefit improvements that will follow. State and local governments cannot afford to pay to improve benefits. Everybody is broke. If police and firefighters want better benefits, they need to figure out how to get the public to pay for them. Until they show us the money: Vote No.
www.seattleweekly.com/features/0239/news-howland.shtml
REFERENDUM 51 ($7.7 BILLION IN NEW GAS TAXES FOR TRANSPORTATION)
Seven billion dollars is chump change when it comes to our state's transportation needs. We need to raise taxes on gasoline a lot to pay for important improvements. Unfortunately, this package typifies everything that is wrong about the state's approach to transportation: Most of the money goes to increase general-purpose capacity for solo drivers. That's a recipe for more traffic, more pollution, and more sprawl—exactly what we don't need. We are more than willing to pay more taxes to invest in infrastructure around the state—whether in Kirkland or Kennewick, Spokane or Seattle—if it actually lessens congestion, addresses real safety issues, or encourages healthy transportation usage. The fact that the single largest item in this package is $1.7 billion for an expansion of Interstate 405 for single-occupancy vehicles typifies R-51's wrongheadedness. Vote No, but back it up by writing your legislator demanding real solutions.
www.seattleweekly.com/features/0241/news-barnett.shtml
REFERENDUM 53 (SUPPORT CHANGES TO THE EMPLOYMENT SECURITY SYSTEM)
Here's a law worth supporting. Employers who lay off a lot of workers should pay more into the state's unemployment system. That's the guiding principle behind the law that underlies R-53. For years, stable employers that don't toss workers off the job on a regular basis have been subsidizing bosses—like builders—who do. This year, stable employers cut a deal with labor unions to pass this sensible reform of funding within the unemployment- insurance system. The builders, naturally, went ballistic and are trying to block the law by putting it on the ballot. The builders hope instead to convince stable employers to ally with them and severely cut back the benefits that unemployed workers receive. Promote fair reform: Vote Yes.
