Comments

1
May as well go full idiocracy and try for a Constitutional amendment that any new legislation requires a 2/3 majority to pass either the House or Senate, and that all laws sunset out over 10 years without being renewed by a 2/3 majority. Just think--by 2025 we could erase the entire State government from existence. Liberty for all!
2
So when the public passes a law 4 times, it isn't democracy? I sympathize with The Stranger's position, but if the people want a bad law on the books, who is The Stranger to declare they hate democracy?
3
@2 "So when the public passes a law 4 times, it isn't democracy?"

Not if it violates the State Constitution, Federal law, or the US Constitution. The state or voters can pass a law every day for the next ten years, 3,650 times. If it's in violation of one of the above, the law isn't worth the paper and ink it's written upon.
4
Wow Goldy… You’re even more full of shit than usual today.

“A two-thirds legislative supermajority is so difficult to attain that the senate couldn't even come close to mustering one on behalf of an issue that voters have repeatedly approved at the polls—by a 64 percent margin as recently as 2010. Indeed, the bar is so high that passing this constitutional amendment now would basically bar all future legislatures from directly passing another tax or fee increase. Ever.”

Yet, the Washington State Constitution has been successfully amended 106 times since 1893. That’s roughly once every 14 months on average.

You’re right… it’s clearly nearly impossible to get that supermajority.

Also, please note: de•moc•ra•cy - government by the people; especially: rule of the majority ( http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionar… )

64%=majority=democracy
5
@1 fuck yea! But don't be putting any ideas into these clowns' heads. They might actually go for it. Liberty and justice for all? Fuck that. Anarchy, baby, anarchy. Anarchy and poverty for all!
6
@3: 3652 times.
7
Why isn't there a mandatory Vote of the People to line item re authorize tax exemptions & exclusions for the rich and corporations grossing $1 million - by a 2/3 majority?

That would be fair - every Presidential General election.
8
And why isn't a two thirds majority needed to pass any referendum stipulating that a two thirds majority is needed to pass any tax increase?
9
@3, democracy existed before the US Constitution. US Founding documents are not the absolute end all, be all, of the democratic ideal. Unless you want to start explaining things like The 3/5 Compromise and the Articles on Confederation, your appeal to tradition doesn't have much ground to stand on.
10
@8 If the State Democrats were smart they would push this and push this HARD as a Constitutional amendment themselves.

Make it iron clad law that any new 2/3 restrictions require approval of 2/3 of both sides of the legislature AND 2/3 of the voting electorate, and must be renewed every 5 years by the same ratios.
11
@9 unless you want to overthrow our state government and Federal government from the end of a whole lot of guns, my appeal to tradition is authoritative law. Nice try, though.
12
@11, Your authoritative law is not democracy. Please stop trying to move the goal posts and address the question at hand.
13
@12 Democracy isn't hindered. You or I can change the US or State constitutions tomorrow if we wanted to and got enough people to agree with our views. The Constitutions are deliberately designed to limit what can and cannot happen under the rule of law in our nation and states. Don't like it that Rodney Toad and company couldn't get this onto the State constitution today?

Great! Get Republicans to control 2/3 of the State senate and State house. Do that, and take the Governor's office, and get Washington to agree largely with Republican or conservative views, and you're done. If you can't do that, you can try to change our electoral system itself via the State constitution to not be a simple first-past-the-post system. Let's go full on parliamentary, with proportional voting, or something else. Whatever you would like!

...if you can convince everyone to go alone with it. This is civics 101.
14
@12,

No, it's not democracy. As you conservatives like to remind us whenever things don't go *our* way, this country is not a democracy. Thanks for playing.
15
With the election of Republican Senator Angel last November, the Republican caucus has 26 members. Which one did not vote for this 2/3rds business?
16
@13, you are still moving the goalposts. How is the state government attempting to pass a law that the public has passed 4 times "hating democracy"? The state constitution has no bearing on the answer. In fact, the US Founding Documents made this country a representative republic rather than a democracy for a reason. The documents you refer to in that respect hate democracy more than Rodney Tom.

@14, I'm a Sawant level socialist liberal. I just don't believe in redefining things just to try and support my argument. I believe arguments should live or die on their merits, not their propaganda.

The problem here is The Stranger's hyperbole. Nobody is supporting a 2/3s supermajority or Rodney Tom here. The Stranger is the issue, and the issue is calling a spade a badger, something #13 and #14 continue to do.
17
@16
I'm a Sawant level socialist liberal.


By every single measure of most facets of society and most political views I'm somewhere between a hardcore Socialist and a hardcore Green. I vote Democrat and register Democrat because I'm often pragmatic to a fault and see my vote as one piece of the invaluable defense against what I perceive as the tyranny of the right wing, conservatives, and their brand of fascism. If you do that fairly complex political quadrant test, with the far top right being as far right and authoritarian as you can get, with a 10.0/10.0 score, I'm consistently in the bottom left quadrant, in the 8.5/8.5 to 9.0/9.0 range.

I make Gandhi and many Russian thinkers look more conservative than myself. The Democratic party is largely to the right of me. I cheerfully voted for Sawant. I always without fail vote for whomever is the most left/progressive person on any ballot in front of me. I voted Republican once for a Connecticut state Senator when I was 18 in 1994, because I didn't know any better, he lived two blocks from me, and I'd casually known him and his family for years. That was the first and last time.

you are still moving the goalposts. How is the state government attempting to pass a law that the public has passed 4 times "hating democracy"?


Because I'm also a very firm believer in the rule of law and those documents as being sacred, to both protect and enable us, as enacted and ran through our voting process, legislature, and courts, for when we need to iron out disagreements. Our highest courts in Washington have settled the argument and question of whether or not Eyman's 2/3 scheme is legal; they said no. The matter is completely settled legally unless it's changed on a higher level than the State Supreme Court's decision. That one remaining level is to modify the State Constitution. Passing and trying to ram through illegal laws IS tyranny. Eyman's 2/3 law is illegal, and that's a matter of settled law in our state governmental system.

Which brings us to...

The state constitution has no bearing on the answer. In fact, the US Founding Documents made this country a representative republic rather than a democracy for a reason. The documents you refer to in that respect hate democracy more than Rodney Tom.


…so your issue then is with the State and Federal constitutions, I guess? We have to agree to disagree. They both protect and limit all of us in different ways, and both can be modified in a very straightforward if challenging fashion, if enough people agree. It sounds like your beef is with the fact that these binding documents are empowered over our elected officials. I prefer it that way, as do apparently the vast majority of Americans, because it's all part of the myriad checks and balances in our system.
18
And if my views somehow conflict with being a good Socialist or Green, it's the first I've heard of it, and no, I can't reconcile that, because I'm human.
19
Republicans use Alabama and Mississippi as as template for "success".
20
@4 - You sound confused because requiring a super-majority for something as basic as fiscal policy is anti-democratic. An absolute majority is >50%, not 66.
21
Rodney Tom is a big D(ouchebag) alright.
22
@20, would there not be an exception for when the majority of voters impose such a restriction upon their representatives?

@17, that is a perfect example of the goalpost moving. I too am 8.5+ libertarian, 8.5+ liberal on the Political Compass Test, coincidentally.
23
Anyone with a brain hates democracy. Look at the ultimate example of democracy: a lynch mob. Dozens of votes in favor of the hanging and one vote at the end of the rope against it.

You can't have it both ways. If you are for democracy voting for more state-sponsored theft from the poor (i.e., taxation) to fund the corporate-owned government than you also have to be okay with states in the south voting for laws banning marriage equality.

In the words of Benjamin Franklin: "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the results."
24
@23, why are you talking to grownups?
25
@19 - Don't forget Utah - the GOP's wet dream! Run by the churchislators, populated by (mostly white) sheeple. Need an example of the horrors of no separation of church, "think tank"*, and state, look here.

*Sutherland Institute. Google them - they're delightful.
26
What the statehouse needs is more bard, jewish liberals to fight Mr Tom.
27
So, in the next election are we going to drop the now very obviously false pretext that Tom should have a (D) appended to his name? In other words, even with our "top two primary system" running against McBride would NOT be considered a race between candidates of the same party?

Please wait...

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