Comments On: The Billionaires Initiative Process by Goldy

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

SchmuckyTheCat — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 12:44:34 -0800

You lose any argument citing special interests. Everybody has a special interest. There isn't anything negative about a special interest.

And the rest of the argument is that most political issues have rich people that take a position on different sides of the issue. Woah, newsflash. This has nothing to do with initiatives - and is much more transparent than lobbyists buying off legislators.
Posted by SchmuckyTheCat

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

Mister G — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 17:47:49 -0800

So now the Seattle "progressives" are against initiatives because they're too fucking lazy to get off their asses and use the tool given to them by their authentically progressive grandfathers.
Posted by Mister G

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

Don't you think he looks tired? — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 10:04:53 -0800

I've read your complaints about the initiative system over the years. I see the point you're trying to make about the role of money, but isn't this true of all elections. Folks running for office raise tons of money from rich people, and we're ultimately left to vote for the candidates that billionaires have chosen to invest in. If your indictment of the initiative process is correct, then it applies equally to the whole institution of electoral democracy in America.
Posted by Don't you think he looks tired?

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

Goldy — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 01:10:32 -0700

@23 Man, do you read the posts? I never said that Bezos put R-74 on the ballot.

But maybe it's my bad for assuming my readers might know the difference between a referendum and an initiative by now, without me having to explicitly explain it in every goddamn post.
Posted by Goldy

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 00:33:48 -0700

There is an assumption to the anti-initiative crowd that you can't possibly get enough people to devote some part of their time to help gather those signatures. And that's pretty pathetic. But it's sadly true, and a blistering critique of this state's politics.

Maybe they should accept signatures online, because Washingtonians would rather bitch on the Interwebs in futility than stand outside a Safeway for four hours a week productively.
Posted by K

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

sarah70 — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 00:26:07 -0700

@17, unfortunately, Gates is in favor of charter schools. When Crosscut was taking Gates Foundation money, there were many articles by "journalists" touting charter schools. Now not so much, because the Gates money is gone.
Posted by sarah70

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

Coal Canary — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 21:13:54 -0700

Am I missing something here? Why not just ban paid signature gathering? If something is really important enough to be on the ballot, then surely a bunch of people will be willing to spend their own time gathering the signatures needed.
Posted by Coal Canary

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

King Rat — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 19:25:42 -0700

Man, do you not fact-check stuff here?

Bezos didn't put Referendum 74 on the ballot. NOM put it on the ballot.
Posted by King Rat

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

Cato the Younger Younger — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 18:36:39 -0700

There is nothing you can do to change it. Oh I suppose we can all camp out at Westlake Center and not take baths for a week but that only lasts until the weather gets cold and the city clears it out in a few short hours.

So just sit back and do what the daddy billionaires tell us to vote on.
Posted by Cato the Younger Younger

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

Sargon Bighorn — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 15:16:47 -0700

#17 WOW you quote me and STILL do not understand what I said. Amazing. You me him her they us are NOT PAID TO SIGN ANYTHING. People might be paid to try to get us to sign but I have NEVER EVER been given a penny to sign an initiative. Have you been paid to sign an initiative? That is my point which you missed. Politics is full of lies and no one is debating that.
Posted by Sargon Bighorn

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

camlux — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 15:11:27 -0700

I hate all initiatives. It's a bad system.
Posted by camlux

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

Supreme Ruler Of The Universe — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 14:14:26 -0700

I'm sponsoring an initiative next year that is supported by middle class techie guys.

The goal is to give tax incentives and special bonuses to women with pronounced yoga butt. These incentives will reward those in state with yoga butt, and create opportunities for those out of states sporting a yoga butt to move to Washington, especially near my apartment complex.

Initiative 323.
Yoga Butt.

Because it is time regular guys got something.

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

Farts Weird — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 13:51:19 -0700

Gates and Bezos didn't initiate R-74- opponents of marriage equality did.
Posted by Farts Weird

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

westello — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 13:47:56 -0700

"People sign to have initiatives and referendum placed on ballots. They are not paid to sign."

Sorry but as someone who kept an eye on the 1240 petition process, I saw plenty of people being told half-truths and out and out lies about what they were signing. Sure, people SHOULD be more careful about what they sign but money talks and when you are getting paid to get signatures, you'll say anything to get it.

Goldy is right; we need some kind of structure or mechanism so that what would seem to be part of the democratic process is not taken over by wealthy people.

(What is fascinating is that these people let their money do the talking. For example, Bill Gates, who has put in $3M of his OWN money, has had nothing to say about I-1240. Oh right, it would never affect his kids so never mind.)
Posted by westello

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

Occupy Seattle — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 13:40:12 -0700

I am all for the initiative process. Otherwise, we'd never get marijuana legalized. But I just for the life of me don't understand Tea Party Republican Kim Wyman's objection to registering paid signature gatherers. So let me get this straight. She doesn't want to encourage young Americans to vote by pre-registering them when they get their driver's license. She doesn't want the busy, procratinating, or just moved Americans to vote by having election day registration. But she is all for letting the millionaires and billionaires do whatever they fucking want to push these intiative through, withouth putting ANY checks and balances on them. She either sounds incredibly lazy, incompetent, or corrupt. Either way, unfit for Secretary of State office. Vote Kathleen Drew for Secretary of State. Kathleen will put some sanity back into the initiative process.
Posted by Occupy Seattle

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

learhpa — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 13:29:27 -0700

> Even seemingly grassroots efforts like I-502 (marijuana legalization) and R-74 (same-sex marriage) are overwhelmingly funded by wealthy individuals, the former by over $2 million from Progressive Insurance chairman Peter Lewis, and the latter backstopped by over $3 million from local billionaires Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates alone.

Surely this gets the polarity of R-74 wrong. R-74 is on the ballot because a bunch of people opposed to the same-sex marriage law circulated petitions to force a vote on it. Bezos and Gates threw a bunch of money down to support its passage ... but they weren't responsible for it being on the ballot; that responsibilities lies with its opponents.
Posted by learhpa

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

Sargon Bighorn — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 13:20:16 -0700

This is all so much bull shit Goldy and you know it. People sign to have initiatives and referendum placed on ballots. They are not paid to sign. People Choose to sign, no money needed to make a choice. Signature gatherers might be paid, the printers of the forms might be paid, and the messages on the media might be paid for, but not ONE of those things will happen unless NON-paid citizens FREELY choose to sign. Like others have said the real solution is to let elected law makers make law, not the unelected citizens.
Posted by Sargon Bighorn

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

orino — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 13:11:25 -0700

Paying signature gatherers used to be illegal in Washington, but someone sued and the law was invalidated by the courts as an infringement on free speech. : /
Posted by orino

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

originalcinner — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 13:08:10 -0700

I thought Bezos put his money behind R-74 after it was already on the ballot, rather than funding it so it got there in the first place?
Posted by originalcinner

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

Bauhaus I — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 13:00:12 -0700

Getting rid of referendums and initiatives would be a dream come true. Because really, how can something be a referendum with a 24% turnout? I object strongly to civil rights issues - issues supposedly guaranteed by federal and state constitutions - being at the mercy of voters who may or may not be informed. Remember the Briggs Initiative in the 70s? School teachers couldn't be gay? Almost as bad was the start of it all in my opinion, California's Prop 13 - which rolled back property taxes to a fraction of what they had been - ruined the state's much admired education, social system, and infrastructure and 30 years later the state is essentially bankrupt. Renters even were swayed by claims and voted for it because we were told property tax increases were the reason rents were skyrocketing. You can imagine my surprise when just three or four weeks after Prop 13 passed, I was hit with an 11% rent increase. Rent increases were so rampant in LA County Los Angeles instituted rent control measures after Prop 13 limiting rent increases to 7% annually - and you could set your watch to that letter appearing every April notifying me of a 7% rent increase. No one benefited from Prop 13 other than homeowners and landlords who thought they were being overtaxed.

Point is - the state has never really recovered from Prop 13 and I don't think it would have ever made it through an elected legislature. It was too radical and too directed for the benefit wealthy property owners.

And I'd be for eliminating the initiatives process for no other reason than to keep Tim Eyman, that boxy-headed little creep, out of the public affairs limelight.
Posted by Bauhaus I

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

Goldy — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 12:58:44 -0700

@9 No, I-912, the anti-gasoline tax initiative in 2005, was the last to qualify with an all volunteer campaign.
Posted by Goldy

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

LMcGuff — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 12:51:13 -0700

I think the high-earner income tax was the last initiative to get on the ballot (2010) with mostly volunteers to gather signatures.
Posted by LMcGuff

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

J.R. — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 12:49:58 -0700

@4: Real direct democracy would be great, but lower signature thresholds wouldn't. Goldy's idea is good. Fewer initiatives, each with real support from the public, would be a major improvement over the current system.
Posted by J.R.

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

Rotten666 — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 12:34:38 -0700

Hate to side with you, but you are 100% correct.
Posted by Rotten666

Re: The Billionaires Initiative Process

Goldy — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 12:33:55 -0700

@4 That's not my premise, so please don't put words in mouth. I've never been shy about the fact that I believe the initiative process is generally a stupid and anti-deliberative way to write and pass legislation.

That said, I could accept lowering the signature threshold in exchange for effective contribution limits, if that were the political compromise necessary to achieve real reforms.

Posted by Goldy