pudge's Journal: WA Government Not Getting It

This is wonderful.

A legislative panel sunk its teeth into a plan Tuesday to create a citizens panel charged with reviewing proposed initiatives to aid puzzled voters ...

Retired political scientist Ned Crosby and his wife Pat Benn in 1999 began pushing their idea for a Citizen Initiative Review program, which would make independent recommendations to voters inundated with campaign propaganda.

Note that "independent" means, as it says later on in the article, that it "would be housed under the Secretary of State's Office and overseen by a nine-member board of appointees. The program would operate on $500,000 a year of state money." That is, it is independent of everyone except for the state government.

Why do all this?

Trust in the media to explain issues is slipping and too much of the information provided in the voter's guide is written by campaigns, so plain-spoken recommendations from ordinary citizens would offer a new level of credibility, Benn said.

So because we do not trust the media to tell us how to vote, we should therefore trust ... the government? The lack of trust in government is why we have an initiative process in the first place, and now they want the government to make official recommendations on the initiatives, and put them on the ballot.

And no, they are not kidding. They really believe this is a reasonable thing.

What's really underlying this, of course, is that a lot of liberals think they and the government know better than the people do, so when a ballot initiative passes, it must be because the people weren't properly informed, so obviously, the people need the liberals to tell them how to think and vote.

Of course, my right to vote was stolen from me, so they obviously don't really care what I think anyway.

Now Playing: Woody Guthrie - Swimmy Swim

Clearly there should be an *initiative* on this

[sulli]

Or two or three.

Doesn't Washington have a Ballot Simplification Committee or some such that is responsible for providing a nonpartisan summary of measures before the voters? Or is this what is proposed?

Re:Clearly there should be an *initiative* on this

[pudge]

Doesn't Washington have a Ballot Simplification Committee or some such that is responsible for providing a nonpartisan summary of measures before the voters? Or is this what is proposed?

First, I do not trust the government to *simplify* ballot initiatives either. The great majority of ballot initiatives are for overruling the government; it makes no sense to let them summarize the initiatives.

Second, this is not just about summaries, but actually for making recommendations. The government making recommend

Initiatives

[ces]

I don't generally have a problem with the initiative process for the most part as it stands.

My only real problem is some of the 'bought and paid for' initatives that benefit a particular industry or interest group (the one on dentures comes to mind). In a few cases I think the initative process is being used when said intrests can't get favorable legislation passed.

For the most part and for anything 'big' where there has been much yelling and screaming (car tabs, property tax limitation, malpractice reform,

Re:Initiatives

[pudge]

I agree with you.

And while there are obvious problems with some initiatives, none of them justify making the government the arbiter for recommending one way or another.

And as a newcomer to this state, I'll note that I dislike the idea of the initiative process. I find it to be counter to the Republican principles on which the nation stands: if you sit down and read The Federalist Papers, you'd realize pretty quickly that Publius would have hated the idea.

However, it's not unconstitutional (well, you could