Have you been to the drive-thru window at your local fast food place or bank lately?
If you're like some of the members of the Cheney Free Press editorial board, the thought of quickly pulling into the lane, taking care of business, speeding away and getting on with your day is indeed enticing.
But seriously, when's the last time the drive-up window wasn't jammed with people ordering food for the entire football team or taking so long you were sure they were applying for a home mortgage? You just never know.
Well the same might be said of the ever-popular initiative process in Washington state.
We'd like to maybe call it drive-thru democracy, because going in you just really don't know the end result. Will it be a great experience or result in a rise in your blood pressure?
Ballot initiatives have indeed become very popular in the state over the past couple of decades as there appears to be a growing number of people who have become dissatisfied with the way their lawmakers sometimes act in their own best interests. Figures show that filing ballot initiative measures has skyrocketed. In the 1990s, there were 23 and so far in this decade, 28. Contrast this with the 1980s when there were just 10 filed.
By definition, the initiative process or referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. In other words, allowing the people to take the lead in change.
In his book, “Democracy Derailed,” Washington Post columnist David Broder calls the initiative process “direct democracy.” But he warns it is something that has potential far-reaching consequences. Born out of the public's disdain of politics and distrust of politicians the process has evolved, Broder writes, into “not a government of laws, but laws without government.”
In Washington state, the self-proclaimed king of the initiative process is Tim Eyman who has authored many notable measures in the past and is doing so again this year with I-1033, another effort to keep the state's ability to tax at will under control. While that all sounds well and good on the surface, the problem with initiatives is that they often attempt to tackle complex issues with a fix that might require nuts and bolts but gets Elmer's glue instead.
Initiatives tend to spawn unintended consequences and there's no better example of that than the havoc I-695 - you know, the $30 car tabs so many of us cheered - brought to cities across the state. Maybe the motor vehicles excise tax wasn't fair, but when license tab fees were slashed much to our glee, it had a detrimental impact across the state for municipal governments.
I-695 was later overturned by the Washington State Supreme Court, but the Legislature killed the MVET anyway.
And just as the initiative process has gotten more popular, so has the use of paid signature gatherers. The process, originally intended to be a grassroots effort - where concerned citizens grab us at the mall or the supermarket to sign names and support their cause - now has little of that altruism still attached.
So we leave you with these thoughts on initiatives. Don't just go support something using anger and emotion. Step back, take a few breaths and spend time to think things through. Then if it still galvanizes you, follow through.
Don't just pop into that drive thru lane when it comes to something as important as your vote.
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