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Sound Bite: State of Emergency
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| Contributor | Ralphie |
| Last Edited | Ralphie May 20, 2005 09:32am |
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| Category | Opinion |
| Media | Newspaper - The Stranger |
| News Date | Thursday, May 19, 2005 03:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | It might be illegal to yell "Fire!" under false pretenses in a crowded movie house, but yelling "Emergency!" on the floor of the state legislature (under false pretenses, for sure) was standard operating procedure this year.
The most notorious of this year's Democratic "emergencies" was perhaps SB 6078, which obliterated initiative I-601-1994's voter mandate for a two-thirds majority in both houses for any revenue increase. The urge to declare a tax increase emergency was so flagrantly partisan that the Democrats couldn't find a single Republican in either house to vote along with them. As an emergency law, SB 6078 was effective immediately, opening the floodgates for a deluge of new taxes, including taxes on liquor, gasoline, and cigarettes, each with its own referendum-repelling emergency clause.
Other partisan emergencies included SB 5097, which reserves 15 percent of all work on big-ticket public works contracts for apprentices, a generous windfall to the unions; and SB 5034, "Making restrictions on campaign funding," which removes some of the voter-mandated restrictions on campaign funding-also highly favorable to the unions. Only two Republicans voted for SB 5034.
I called several Democrats to ask why their caucus declared so many emergencies (nearly 20 percent of the bills passed this year) in situations that don't pass the smell test. The only one who returned this Republican blogger's call was Sen. Karen Keiser (D-33, SeaTac). She explained that they add the emergency clause when a bill "could be in jeopardy," expressing what she called their "frustration as policymakers" that the "people's business can be undone" through "mischief."
A coalition led by the Washington State Farm Bureau is engaged in such constitutionally approved "mischief" by suing to file a referendum on SB 6078, seeking to overturn the declared emergency. |
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