Shameless plug for IRV

Those of you that have been following IRV know that HB 1447 recently passed the Senate, and is now headed to the Governor's desk to be signed into law. HB 1447 allows cities of a certain size (140,000 to 200,000 residents) to be able to amend their city charter to use IRV in their general non-partisian elections.

That leaves three cities in the State of Washington that are elgible for IRV; Vancover, Tacoma, and Spokane. Vancouver has already amended their charter, and appears to be the petri dish for IRV. Brent White, a lobbyist for the IRVWA effort, recently sent out this e-mail:

HB 1447, allowing Vancouver to try IRV up to three times, is on its way to the governor's desk. While it is far short of everything we want, it is still a victory for the cause of IRV, and will allow Vancouver to implement its 1999 charter amendment, at least for a limited time.

We've seen the Secretary of State's office testify skeptically on this bill,and then claim to favor this bill when testifying on other bills. You can be sure Secretary Reed will be meeting with the Governor's office shortly,and he will likely pooh-pooh the whole notion of IRV, public claims to the contrary.

The governor will have five days to act on the bill once it reaches her desk.

We need calls quickly to ask Governor Gregoire to sign this bill.

HB 1447:
* Allows Vancouver to move forward with the instant runoff voting charter amendment its voters passed back in 1999.
* Has a sunset clause, which takes that permission away from Vancouver after the 2011 election.
* Leaves it up to the Vancouver City Council to decide whether to try IRV or not.

There is nothing radical in this bill. It just allows the will of the voters in Vancouver to finally be acted upon. And if IRV isn't tried locally, and in a city that has asked to try it,where should it be tried? Let's get a bunch of calls in to Governor Gregoire's office, and help herdecide that signing HB 1447 is the safe thing to do.

The governor's hotline is 360-902-4111.