Past Voter's Guide: 2016

Welcome to Jayne's 2016 Olympia Voters Guide! 

I'll be updating this shortly in order to make it easier to navigate. In the meantime, it's laid out in the same order as the ballot is. Sorry for all the scrolling! 

Initiative no. 1433

Vote YES

Why? This would raise Washington’s minimum wage to $13.50 by 2020. I don’t think I need to do a lot of convincing for folks reading this guide about why this is a good idea.

Initiative No. 1464

Vote YES

It will help level the playing field for third-party candidates and give ordinary citizens a bigger role in campaigns. The then uses that money to give WA citizens the opportunity to direct funds to their candidate(s) of choice. It has been endorsed by pretty much every progressive group that endorses things, including The Stranger, Sightline, and the League of Women Voters.

Initiative No. 1491

Vote YES!

This is, frankly, a great idea. This law would give a variety of folks (including both family members and police) the ability to request that a judge temporarily prevent a person’s access to firearms. The person would need to turn over their guns and be prohibited from buying more for up to one year. This is the kind of compromise legislation that even many second amendment fans can get behind. (The NRA, of course, hates it.)

Remember, the vast majority of firearm deaths are from suicides and suicides can often be prevented by removing access to firearms until a person can get help. Additionally, women who are shot are overwhelmingly shot by family members, and this law would provide an extra level of protection.

Initiative No. 1501

Vote NO

This initiative is worthless BS.

You know what I love? Washington’s public disclosure laws. I love them even when progressive folks want to ignore them, which is sadly why we have this initiative. (See The Stranger’s amusing and spot-on analysis here).

Other than making it so that state-employed home health care aides can’t have their names released via public disclosure, all this initiative does is increase the current civil and legal penalties for identity theft and fraud when it is perpetrated upon people age 65 and over. There are already penalties for these. Making penalties bigger is not going to make an appreciable dent in the problem of senior-focused scams. Frankly, I’m sort of pissed off that SEIU is wasting our time on this.

Initiative No. 732

Vote YES

Let’s implement a basic change to our system that will help fight climate change! This will make the carbon tax a reality in Washington, a cause that is long overdue. Nearly everyone agrees that taxing carbon is a great idea. Yes, there are some things that are not completely ideal about this particular law (there are arguments about whether it raises enough money in carbon taxes to pay for the taxes it cuts) but it’s still a good law overall. The drafters did a good job in limiting impacts on low-income and working class families.

There is another group that has been working on an even more progressive carbon tax, but they don’t have an actual proposal yet. If they try to run an initiative during the next three years (non-presidential election years) you can solidly bet that it will fail.

So vote yes to this year’s initiative, and then if the coalition can run a better initiative in four years, we can all vote for that one instead.  But let’s not do nothing for four years – or longer – simply because there’s a theoretical possibility that a better law might exist. This one is a strong step forward.

Initiative No. 735

Vote YES

Although this will have no direct effect on overturning the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United ruling, it will affirm that Washingtonians don’t believe in corporate persons having constitutional rights.

Advisory Votes:

Vote MAINTAINED

We’re only voting on these because Tim Eyman is an anti-tax corporate stooge. I tend to vote “maintained” on these both on principle (stick it to Eyman!) and because they’re usually good decisions. Have you ever looked at what it takes to pass something in our legislature that raises fees or taxes of any kind? It’s extremely difficult, and thus what does pass is usually completely common-sense and unoffensive. In any case, these advisory votes have zero effect on actual governance.  

Proposed Amendment to the State Constitution

Joint Resolution no. 8210

Vote YES

The legislature unanimously agreed that the deadline for redistricting should be Nov 15 instead of Jan 1. As you may have noticed in your own job, very little gets done during the holiday season so this makes a lot of sense. As a bonus, it might save us a little money.

President

 Vote *JILL STEIN or HILLARY CLINTON

*so long as you are voting in Washington – i.e. NOT a swing state.

Hillary Clinton is the most qualified person to vote for and (sadly for us) will probably be the candidate who would actually get the most done on progressive issues if elected.

However, a vote for Jill Stein is a vote for the Green Party to have more funding for the next presidential election (which they will get if they receive 5% of the vote) and since it’s highly unlikely that Washington will swing to Trump, she’s a pretty safe third-party vote.

This has been an ugly, ugly election year when it comes to the presidential race. Emotions are high, and misinformation has been rampant. Here are my general thoughts: 

While Clinton has made many decisions that I disagree with (particularly in regard to trade agreements and pro-war votes), she has also been vilified more than is reasonable or factual. She’s a strong centrist and a behind-the-scenes consensus-builder – which means she’s to the right of most folks reading this guide. I’ll look forward to protesting a variety of her decisions for the next four years, but she’ll also continue some of the things I most liked about Obama, like appointing good people to the judiciary (and not just the Supreme Court, which everyone focuses on, but the lower judicial appointments which are the pipeline to Supreme Court nominees in the future.)

Stein, although I agree with almost all of the Green Party’s policy stances, would be a completely ineffectual president and frankly, based on her campaign’s Facebook posts and listening to her speak on Democracy Now!, I don’t think she’s smart enough or has enough backbone to be president. I was excited about Bernie. I am not excited about Stein.

As for Gary Johnson, the things I agree with him on (legalizing drugs, protecting abortion rights, etc.) aren’t enough to overpower my dislike for his stances on social programs (i.e. getting rid of them.) Also, he’s dangerously unqualified to deal with foreign policy.

Trump: I’m not even going to comment.

US Senator:

Vote for PATTY MURRAY

She’s better than Vance, and we really, really need to keep congress as Democratic as possible if we want our president to be able to do anything positive (or to block bad legislation, should Trump win.)

US Representative

Vote for DENNY HECK

Same reason as why we should vote for Murray.

Governor

Vote for JAY INSLEE

This is one where your vote can really count, folks. Having a Democrat in office will significantly improve our chances of passing progressive legislation in our state and/or vetoing bad legislation. So far, Inslee’s polling ahead, but remember that Gregoire beat Rossi by only 133 votes statewide in 2004.

Lieutenant Governor

Vote CYRUS HABIB

Here’s a candidate that you can be happy to vote for. Habib has been a legislator in the House of Representatives and a Senator, where he sponsored and supported legislation that ranged from the Voting Rights Act to bipartisan transportation bills, guaranteed sick leave, and language acknowledging climate change. He’s an Iranian-American who lost his sight at age 8 from cancer (and he also apparently has a great sense of humor - for a traditional event in which junior lawmakers bring gifts for the rest of the legislature, he brought glasses similar to his own so that everyone else “could be as cool as (him)".) In addition to filling in for the governor if he’s ever incapacitated, Habib would be the tiebreaker in the Senate, so we want someone progressive in this position.

His opponent (Marty McClendon) is a right-wing radio host, preacher, and Tea Party supporter.

Secretary of State

Vote KIM WYMAN

Yes, I know, she’s a Republican. But she’s a good public servant with years of experience running elections (she was the Thurston County Elections manager for eight years and our County Auditor for another twelve years.) Have you had problems in the past voting in our area? Probably not. And that’s because Wyman knows what she’s doing. We haven’t seen any of the illegal-voter scare tactics that Republicans have pushed in other parts of the country. Furthermore, she’s endorsed by a huge number of county election officials, both Democrat and Republican. The King and Pierce county election officials made a TV ad for her. I literally do not know of another candidate that has ever had this level of cross-party support.

Claims have made the rounds that she supported a voter ID law (not true) and violated campaign disclosure laws. The latter is true, but only in that her campaign missed deadlines for reporting information. They reported all the proper information after the deadline and guess why the public knows that they missed the deadlines? Because her campaign reported it themselves. It’s a complete non-issue.

As for the voter ID law, what she actually did was suggest that Washington follow the federal Real ID Act (that’s the thing where, if we don’t do it soon, our state IDs will no longer work to get on planes) and that when we do that we automatically register people to vote when they get their ID. This would likely increase voter registration, and still would not require people to show IDs in order to register to vote.

State Treasurer

Vote DUANE DAVIDSON

Our choices for State Treasurer are both Republicans. One of them has four terms worth of experience as a county treasurer (Davidson) and the other is a private investments manager (Waite).

Davidson made incremental changes to improve efficiency in Benton County and we can probably expect more of the same in state office.

Waite, on the other hand, wants to bring “innovation” to our state’s investments and plans to use the office to push his anti-tax agenda (according to his website, he plans to “work with legislators so that State Government does not take on one penny more in debt or taxes until we begin to reduce our escalating [sixth highest in the country] current debt. Now is no time to talk of an income tax.”)

State Auditor

Vote PAT (PATRICE) MCCARTHY

She has experience as the Pierce County Executive and County Auditor which will help her ensure that our state government is working properly.

Her opponent is an anti-trans and anti-abortion rights Republican who I certainly wouldn’t trust to oversee government accountability.

Attorney General

Vote BOB FERGUSON

Ferguson has been our Attorney General for the past four years and has done a good job. (I have to support anyone who sued Comcast for us!)

His opponent (Trumbull) has zero public experience and his main campaign promises are to “protect life, liberty and property” and to not be a Democrat or Republican.

Commissioner of Public Lands

Vote HILLARY FRANZ

I love easy choices. Franz has a long history of environmental work, including work on salmon recovery, green jobs, and climate action.

Her opponent (McLaughlin) is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a politician who supports “antigovernment” movements (like the Bundy brothers’ takeover of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge) and says that he wants to create more logging jobs and re-open more roads through our forests.

Superintendent of Public Instruction

Vote CHRIS REYKDAL

Reykdal is a solid choice for SPI. His experience with the legislature and as a teacher will make him an effective leader for our schools, and his grasp of educational issues is both broad and nuanced. I was impressed with the “Opportunity Gap” section on his website, which includes the following:

“Our failure to address inequitable resources in our communities and in our schools leads to the opportunity gap.  Native American students, African-Americans, Hispanics, and a host of other ethnic and racial populations are systemically discriminated against in the way we fund schools, our inability to address poverty, our discipline policies, and our narrowing definition of how students demonstrate proficiency by use of standardized, often culturally biased, and generally English-only exams.  We cannot approach 100% graduation rates until we take a more sincere, more persistent, and more honest approach to how we connect our diverse communities with our public education system.  Our education system was designed by people of privilege, it reflects their advantages, right down to the nine month agrarian calendar.”

Like many, I’ve lost trust in Jones over time. Her slippery comments on gender identity and associated curricula gives me pause, especially in combination with her involvement in school-based religious organizations. Her stance on charter schools seems similarly slippery and her supporters include prominent school privatization proponents.

Insurance Commissioner

Vote MIKE KREIDLER

Kreidler has been our insurance commissioner for sixteen years and he’s doing a good job! There’s no reason to switch to a “progressive Republican” (what does that even mean?)

Senator, District 22

Vote SAM HUNT

Hunt is a pretty boring Democrat. Don’t expect him to show up in the front lines of a protest anytime soon. But his opponent (Owens) wants to decrease environmental regulations, reduce the Department of Ecology’s ability to punish wrongdoers, and make public assistance more difficult to get.

Representative, District No. 22, Position No. 1

Vote LAURIE DOLAN

Another boring Democrat with the usual endorsements running against another Republican (Austin) who wants lower taxes, less public transportation, et cetera.

Representative, District No. 22, Position No. 2

Vote BETH DOGLIO or write someone in or don’t vote at all!

No one else is running, so she’s going to win.

County Commissioner District No. 1

Vote JIM COOPER

From Olympia City Council to County Commissioner, Cooper is clearly aiming for the legislature in the future. He’s the adult, nonprofit version of the high school kid who gets involved in every extracurricular activity that he can in order to improve his college application: from the Olympia Regional Clean Air Agency to the Thurston Council on Children and Youth to United Way et cetera. So far, he’s expressed support for issues ranging from Indigenous Peoples’ Day to securing land from developers for LBA park, to the $15 minimum wage. Let’s see if he keeps it up as he moves up the political food chain.

Hutchings, on the other hand, is a former police chief from Tenino who wants to “balance” environmental and property rights (which is code for loosening regulation). He’s been endorsed by police and sheriffs’ groups, prosecuting attorneys, the Olympia Master Builders (whose endorsements can almost always be used as a list of who not to vote for), as well as the crazy right-wing guy who made this picture:

I think this picture alone would make me want to vote for Cooper.

County Commissioner District No. 2

Vote KELSEY HULSE

Hulse is the progressive upstart in this race. She supports environmental regulations and the Growth Management Act as well as diversionary programs rather than increased incarceration.

Gary Edwards, much like Hutchings (above) is endorsed by the Olympia Master Builders, sheriffs, and prosecuting attorneys. He’s running as “no party preference” but since he’s interested in “reigning in government” and loosening regulations in order to improve the “business climate” and “support job creators”, I don’t think I’m going out on a limb to suggest he’s a Republican. 

Supreme Court Justice Position No. 1

Vote MARY YU

Yu is a career lawyer and current state supreme court justice who supports diversity and rethinking juvenile detention. She’s also the first Asian American, Latina, and openly gay woman on the court.

Her opponent (DeWolfe) has been endorsed by the anti-evolution/”intelligent design” Discovery Institute (he apparently believes in Creationism) and the NRA.

Supreme Court Justice Position No. 5

Vote BARBARA MADSEN

Madsen has been on the state supreme court since 1992. She’s rated “exceptionally qualified” by the Latina/o Bar Association, the Joint Asian Judicial Evaluations Committee, and Qlaw (the LGBTQ Bar Association) and endorsed by many progressive organizations.

I think the best way to clarify the difference between Madsen and her opponent (Greg Zempel) is that Madsen previously served as a public defender, while Zempel served as a prosecutor.

Did you notice that there are no Tim Eyman initiatives this year? I assume that’s because he’s putting more time into running candidates for the courts, like Zempel. Almost all of this year’s challengers to supreme court incumbents are supported by Eyman. The courts have regularly overturned Eyman’s initiatives for being unconstitutional and apparently Eyman has turned his energy toward stacking the court in his favor.

Supreme Court Justice No. 6

Vote CHARLES (CHARLIE) WIGGINS

Wiggins is another current justice who is endorsed by progressive groups.

His opponent (Dave Larsen), on the other hand, is endorsed by a variety of conservative groups. Larsen states that he is running because he thinks the current court is “too political”.

Superior Court Judge Position No. 1

Vote CHRIS LANESE

Lanese has a huge list of local endorsements and community involvement. His past involves work with our Attorney General’s office and pro bono work with Legal Aid.

His opponent (Laura M. Murphy) has had experience as a judge pro tem, but her background is primarily as a prosecuting attorney and she has very few endorsements.

You can learn practically everything you need to know by comparing these candidates’ entries in The Olympian’s Voter Guide.

Superior Court Judge Position No. 7

Vote for whoever you want, because Skinder is going to win.

Skinder is endorsed by Fuse’s Progressive Voter’s Guide but he’s also endorsed by many conservative leaders. In short, he’s endorsed by everyone because there really isn’t another credible candidate. He’s a former prosecuting attorney, which always gives me pause, but at least he was a prosecutor for sexual assault and domestic violence.

Jim Foley’s voter statement says that he is a fiscal conservative who is against deportations. I’d love to tell you more about him but he doesn’t even have a website, much less endorsements.

Public Utility District Commissioner, District No. 2

Russ Olsen is the only person running for this office.

City of Olympia Initiative No. 1

Vote YES

To be clear, a yes vote on this initiative is a vote toward the City of Olympia defending lawsuits against the initiative, which might end with the state Supreme Court reconsidering the constitutionality of an income tax in Washington. It’s not really a vote for this particular program.

There’s a lot of rumors and assertions flying around about this initiative. Here’s what I’ve found:

There are some problems with the initiative

If this initiative was about actually creating an income tax that funded scholarships, it would face some barriers.

First, the initiative sets a limit of 5% to be used for administering the program, which absolutely would not be enough. $125,000 may seem like a lot of money, but once you start thinking about how much city employees cost (remember to include healthcare costs, retirement, L&I taxes, etc.) and how much work it would take to administer a program that basically sets up our own income taxation system and administers scholarships to thousands of people… well, that’s going to be a lot of work.

  

Second, the initiative includes no penalties for failure to pay the tax. So the plan is “pay up, or we’ll ask you to pay up again!”

It will go to court

The purpose of this ballot is to go to court and try to overturn the state supreme court ruling which prevents us from instituting any kind of graduated income tax (which is part of the reason that Washington has one of the most regressive and unfair tax systems in the entire country.)

Opponents claim that the measure is being funded by “Seattle liberals” via the Economic Opportunity Institute. This is true! The Economic Opportunity Institute was involved in drafting the initiative, which I suspect means that it has a fighting chance to make it through the courts. I feel more confident in it than I would if it had been drafted by some random local people in Olympia.

Opponents also claim the measure will cost Olympia a lot of money to defend in court. This is also true. However, the Economic Opportunity Institute has said they will defend the law, and fundraise to pay for the defense, so part of that cost may be defrayed. Thank you, Seattle liberals!

It may or may not have any impact

Whether or not the initiative will make it to a positive supreme court ruling is anybody’s guess. The City of Olympia will almost certainly try to get out of defending it. The court could refuse to hear it. The court could hear it but strike it down on a technicality, rather than on the issue of graduated income taxes. The court could hear it, strike down the prohibition on graduated income tax, and also strike down the ballot measure (which, in my opinion, would be the best outcome.) Depending on whether one believes proponents or opponents, it either has no chance or it has a great chance. 

However, it has already been to court once where it was struck down at our local level (the court said that it was “invalid and beyond the city’s taxation powers”) but the appellate court ruled that it had to be put on the ballot anyway.

TLDR:  

Courts are fickle, and this could end up being an exercise in tilting at windmills. But we need to take some chances if we’re going to make change. And if it succeeds in nothing else, it will clearly signal to our political leaders that this is the kind of change Olympians want.