Past Voter's Guide: 2018

Jayne’s Voter Guide is back! 

Here's all the stuff I found on my ballot, and a short version of what I found out about the issues and why I recommend voting one way or the other. I did not bother with any uncontested positions. 

Initiative Measure 1631: Vote YES!

This creates a $15 fee for every metric ton of carbon emitted by companies. The basic idea is that we make polluting more expensive so that companies are motivated to stop doing it.

This particular carbon fee will raise money that will be put into fighting climate change and, in particular, it puts money toward increasing such efforts in low-income communities who are the most negatively affected by pollution.

It’s probable that it will, in fact, very slightly raise gas prices. But we desperately need this. The most recent IPCC report, based on 6,000 scientific studies, shows that climate change is happening faster than we thought and that reducing warming by even ½ a degree (Celsius) can have a major, positive impact.

The anti-1631 group has been 99% funded by energy companies. Meanwhile, The Stranger, FUSE’s Progressive Voter’s Guide, and even The Olympian say yes on this one.

Initiative Measure 1634: Vote NO!

This is an initiative funded by out-of-state soda companies (for real!) to STOP cities and counties in WA from enacting taxes on soda.

Ballotpedia states that “The top four donors—The Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, Inc., Keurig-Dr. Pepper (formerly Dr. Pepper Snapple Group), and Red Bull North America— had given 99.88 percent of the contributions to the committee.^[3]”

It’s purposefully worded in a confusing manner, and their ads have been chock-full of particularly loathsome lies: for instance, they frame it as preventing a “tax on groceries” but WA law already EXEMPTS groceries from taxes except for soft drinks, prepared food, and alcohol. This initiative will not affect “your groceries” – it will affect the ability of your city or county to make decisions for itself.

Basically, if you want to retain local democratic control then vote no.

Initiative Measure 1639: Vote YES!

This creates the kind of super-duper simple, basic gun regulations that the vast majority of people support.  

Here’s what it would do:

• All requirements for pistols that are currently in state law would be expanded to apply to all firearms
• Semi-automatic weapons can only be sold if: A) the buyer provides proof that they’ve taken a firearms safety class in the past 5 years, and B) local law enforcement provides communication affirming that they have run the buyer through the required background checks and they are allowed to own the gun. (Note: This last part is important, because it puts an affirmative requirement on law enforcement to actually run those background checks.)
• There is a $25 fee when purchasing a firearm which is used to help fund state, mental health organizations, and law enforcement for their required work to  
• Applications to own a firearm come with a warning (similar to that of cigarettes) which says the presence of a gun is associated with higher suicide and death rates.
• It encourages proper storage of weapons by: making it a Class C felony if someone who isn’t allowed to have a gun gets their hand on your gun due to improper storage; requiring gun dealers to offer trigger locks or other storage devices for sale; and puts a warning at sales locations that lets folks know that they could be held liable if someone who isn’t supposed to have a gun gets their gun.
• No one under age 18 will be allowed to own a pistol or semiautomatic weapon (this does not bar parents from taking kids out shooting.)
• People ages 18-21 will be able to own guns, but they can’t carry them – the gun needs to be at home, at work, or travelling between those places

 (As a note, my ‘favorite’ argument against this is that the $25 fee is going to be a barrier to low-income people purchasing guns or is somehow similar to a “poll tax”. If you can afford a gun and ammunition, you can come up with $25.)

Initiative Measure 940: Vote YES!

Here’s what this does:

·       It makes it functionally possible for law enforcement to be held accountable for killing innocent people

·       It requires de-escalation and mental health training for all law enforcement

·       It requires officers to provide first aid

·       It requires independent investigations of use of deadly force

Here’s the longer explanation: It’s extremely difficult to convict law enforcement of killing innocent people because our current law requires officers to have acted with “malice”. It is extremely difficult to prove a person had malicious intent. Short of finding detailed pre-planning for the murder or the officer signing an affidavit beforehand, it is basically impossible. This new law strikes “malice” and keeps a “good faith” standard (i.e. they acted in good faith, believing the force was necessary) and, perhaps more importantly, a “reasonable officer” standard (i.e. a reasonable officer would have acted similarly).

A ton of organizations have endorsed it. Basically the only organizations against it are law enforcement officers’ unions.

Lastly, there is a long, convoluted background to this initiative that involves the initiative getting enough signatures to get on the ballot and then the Legislature crafting and passing a compromise bill, and then Tim Eyeman sued them for not letting folks vote on it, so now the Legislature has vowed to pass it again during the next session but in the meantime we’re still voting on the initiative. You still need to vote on this, though, because we want to make darn sure this turns into an actual law one way or another.

Advisory Vote #19: Vote MAINTAINED or just leave it blank

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.  

U.S. Senator: Vote CANTWELL

Cantwell is the clear choice here if you have any interest in pro-choice policies, protecting coverage for pre-existing conditions, and congressional oversight of our executive branch.

Her opponent, Susan Hutchinson is pro-Kavanaugh, pro-wall, pro-moving the Israeli consulate to Jerusalem, pro-tax cuts for the wealthy, and a big Trump supporter. Basically, the best thing she has going for her is that she’s not Joey Gibson.

U.S. Representative District 10: Vote HECK

Vote for Denny Heck, basically for the same reasons listed for Cantwell above.

As for Joseph Brumbles, he doesn’t have a campaign page but on his twitter he claims that The Olympian is “controlled” and “fake news” because they didn’t endorse Republicans such as himself. And he said that one of his philosophies of governing is “Whenever a doubt, try harder, Whenever a shove, fight harder”. I have questions about how that gets applied to policy making…

Representative, District No. 22, Position 1: Vote DOLAN

Laurie Dolan is your basic WA Democrat, i.e. pretty darn good.

C. Davis says he’s an independent, but all of his issues line up Libertarian/Republican, especially in terms of being against taxes and regulation, and for “cracking down on crime”.

Representative, District No. 22, Position 2: Vote DOGLIO

Beth Doglio is a WA Democrat and does all the usual good Democrat stuff.

Her opponent is a libertarian who only has a Facebook page so who knows what his policy positions are? (The “About” section only says “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness”.) But most of his Facebook is about opposing the gun control initiative, plus a little anti-taxation rhetoric so I’m gonna recommend a pass on this dude.

Auditor: Vote HALL

Mary Hall is the incumbent and she’s been doing a fine job. She recently added a ballot dropbox at Evergreen, which was long overdue. She’s also endorsed by nearly everyone, including NOW, Indivisible Thurston County, the Sierra Club, and The Olympian. (The Olympian went over some of the complaints that her opponent filed against her, which were dismissed, in their endorsement.)

According to his website, Stuart Holmes does not have a single endorsement from a group. He does have former city council member and petty pot narc Jeff Kingsbury’s endorsement, so that’s another reason to vote for Hall.

County Commissioner District #3: Vote MENSER

Menser is the clear choice in this race and he’s someone I’m particularly interested in. He seems to really have a head for policy, he has a background in government and law (as well as being a public defender) and he has great ideas like developing county-wide methods to address homelessness (YES!). His endorsement list is ridiculously long and includes basically every progressive political group.

There are two other “independents” (i.e. Republicans with a mind of their own) on the County Commission, so it would be really great to get a more progressive voice on there.

His opponent is the incumbent, Bud Blake, who’s another Republican-Independent. During the primary, The Olympian described him as “quick to take credit for work done by groups he’s involved with” and said that his budget savings claims “don’t hold up”.

And remember to ignore this Republican-funded flyer attempting to get you to write in EJ Zita. Zita supports Menser. 

Prosecuting Attorney: Vote MINJARES!

Minjares is endorsed by the more progressive side of the political groups (the WA State Progressive Caucus, the Latino Caucus, Seirra Club, Green Party, etc.) and has some good ideas about reducing people held in jail because of inability to pay bail.

But really, my general stance in prosecuting attorney races is to never choose the person that the prosecuting attorney’s association is endorsing. Jon Tunheim is endorsed by the Prosecuting Attorney’s Association, the Deputy Sheriffs, and the Olympia Police Guild.

Supreme Court Justice Pos. #8: Vote GONZALEZ!

Gonzalez has been on our state supreme court for more than six years and he’s endorsed by EVERYONE, including: The Stranger, The Seattle Times, The Yakima Herald-Republic, FUSE, multiple bar associations, Washington Women Lawyers, Qlaw, Northwest Tribal Court Judges Association, a bunch of unions, Olympia Indivisible, etc. etc. He literally has several pages of such endorsements.

Look, Voting for Judges made us a handy comparison table:

Public Utility District Commissioner, District #1: Vote OOSTERMAN

This is a depressing race. Oosterman isn’t inspiring, but she’s not awful. Meanwhile, Saturn talks a good game while leaving a trail of lies behind him.

As best I can tell, Saturn came to Olympia after overstaying his welcome in some Seattle activist circles. Here’s the specifics: He was removed from the Board of Directors of Our Revolution Washington, but he continued to file false documents with the Secretary of State, pretending that he was still a board member and a representative of the group. The actual directors took him to court to make him stop, and the court basically told Saturn that he couldn’t pretend to be ORW and that he couldn’t continue to spout a bunch of lies about the group (there’s literally a list of things he had to stop saying). Saturn went on to violate that order, and then – this is the best part – he took the real ORW directors to court in Thurston County, claiming that they were harassing him!  

The judge in that case specifically said that he found all of the witnesses credible except for Saturn, and ended by saying that he thought that the entire protection request was retaliation for the King County lawsuit that Saturn had just lost.

Anyway, don’t vote for that guy.

Proposition No. 1 “Maintain, Improve, and Expand Public Transportation Services”: Vote YES!

This will add .4% to our local and state sales taxes to pay for much needed improvements to Intercity Transit. That’s 4 cents on a $10 purchase. It’s a big increase, but IT hasn’t asked for an increase in funds for, basically, forever. (Meanwhile, our population keeps growing.) And unlike other regressive taxes, this one has a chance of actually improving the lives of low-income people!

Some things we’ll get:

•       Faster service on major corridors – every 15 minutes!
•       Earlier and later service on major corridors! And on weekends, too!
•     “Night owl” service to downtown on weekends!
•       Expanded Dial-a-Lift service for folks with disabilities!

Bonus: Pretty much everyone (except the no-new-taxes folks) supports this. The Olympian wrote a particularly good endorsement article.