News Eyman: Saving I-200
posted by on June 21 at 16:02 PM
Earlier today I slogged that Eyman had some new initiatives lined up. One of them dealt with “discrimination.”
I assumed this was one of those convoluted reactionary things saying that gay rights discriminate against straights by creating “preferences” and that Eyman’s initiative would say something about “no preferences.”
I guess my head was in Queer land (it’s pride week), and so I jumped to the conclusion that Eyman was taking another swipe at our state’s gay civil rights bill.
Eyman writes in to say it’s not about the gays. It’s more about Seattle School’s racial tiebreaker policy (which is currently in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.) Eyman wants to secure I-200. Here’s Eyman:
We’re exploring various potential initiative proposals. The one on ‘prohibiting discrimination’ relates to saving I-200, an initiative the voters approved in 1998 relating to race, sex, color, ethnicity, and national origin. Since its overwhelming passage, several governments have put loopholes in it and the courts have misinterpreted what “no preferential treatment” means when it comes to race, sex, color, ethnicity, and national origin in public education, public employment, and public contracting. The 59% of the electorate who approved I-200 wanted state and local governments to simply treat everyone equally and wanted the government and the courts to respect its policies, not undermine them. Sexual orientation wasn’t included in I-200 and so it’s not included in this initiative.Interestingly, there’s a U.S. Supreme Court case coming out soon which provides one example of what I’m referring to when it comes to I-200. The State Supreme Court said that Seattle’s “racial tiebreaker” school policy did not violate I-200. By any reasonable reading of the initiative, the State Supreme Court should have invalidated Seattle’s “racial tiebreaker.” Because they didn’t, it was appealed to the SCOTUS, and their upcoming U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which is due any day now, is widely expected to overturn this policy for Seattle schools and possibly schools throughout the nation. Again, this is just one example of Washington state’s courts and
the Legislature misinterpreting and undermining I-200.
P.s. In the Bush witch-hunt era (see Annie Wagner’s post), Eyman might want to add political persuasion into that mix of “no discrimination.”
Which is certainly not to say that Tim Eyman supports gay equality. Please. Why even bother defending yourself -- of all places, here, Tim?
Can someone please write an initiative that says that the language of all subsequent initiatives must be standardized so that racist homophobic enemies of the environment can't (get paid to) write initiatives that call themselves "preventing discrimination"?
Am I reading this correctly, btw? Are Eyman and Feit on the same side when it comes to decoupling Sound Transit from RTID? Which horseman of the apocalypse is that?
I initially figured this wasn't about sexuality issues as Eyman bungled that the first time, with leaders in the anti-gay circles stating they wouldn't work with Eyman again.
Still though, some folks are happy to repeat the recent past, so I didn't rule it out. Thanks, Josh, for the update.
Can we get an initiative that declares Tim Eyman to be a horse's ass which I'm sure 99.99% of the voters would approve?
Oh yeah, tried that.
MvB,
Chopp was with me on decoupling them too. How's that for the apocalypse?
Question: when you get an email from Tim Eyman, do you reformat your hard drive, disinfect your keyboard, and take a shower afterwards?
The most important thing to remember in dealing with Mr. Eyman -- he's a businessman, and for him initiatives are a business; it's how he makes his living now. He will do or say whatever he needs to, write whatever initiative he needs to write, if he thinks his contributors will support it and send him money.
For me, he's just so much hot air.
What a frickin LUSER he is.
None of the above makes the issue wrong.
Disagree with the underlying law if you like, but when the people, either through their elected officials or directly, pass a law mandating X and administrative officials interpreting that law decide it doesn't really mean X, but instead means Y, we tend to call that the Bush Administration.
It's no less wrong just because it's racial preferences being used illegally instead of wiretapping. Follow the law until you get it changed.
"We’re exploring various potential initiative proposals."
That's Eymanspeak for "I'm exploring which issue I can get the most money from"
ywrvxqpd gxanywm zrkmyoqv zapexhvry vznjrx antmldu rundfbkj
Comments Closed
In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).