BIAW Tries the Direct Approach

Like supporters of pot legalization—who've seen their legislative agenda go down in flames already and so are turning to a voter initiative—advocates of workers'-comp reform, subject of our feature story last week ("Take an Ax to It," Jan. 20), are taking matters into their own hands.

Jeremy Eaton

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More About

• Building Industry Association of Washington
• Dino Rossi
• Politics
• Elections and Voting

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Last week, the Building Industry Association of Washington notified the Secretary of State's office that it will start collecting signatures for an initiative requiring the legislature to allow private insurers to compete with the state-run system. Republicans have already introduced such a bill, but it stands no chance in the Democrat-controlled legislature.

The BIAW has had plenty of success getting initiatives on the ballot, but has a mixed record on getting them passed. In 2003, for instance, the home-builders' group sponsored an anti-ergonomics referendum and won: Fifty-three percent of voters agreed that new rules passed by the legislature placed too high a burden on businesses. Three years later, the BIAW co-sponsored an initiative requiring the government to pay landowners when it passes restrictions on how they can use their land. Voters rejected that one. Of course, the citizenry handed BIAW its biggest defeat in 2008 by roundly rejecting Dino Rossi, whom the homebuilders had bankrolled for governor.