Offering frequent news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Times turns around and disappoints us

Yesterday, we praised the Seattle Times for their coverage of our need for better emergency preparedness and how that's interconnected with Initiative 912.

But today, we're unahppy with the Times: first for printing a story that isn't news and shouldn't have been printed; and second, for siding with Attorney General Rob McKenna and Tim Eyman over a lingering part of the I-776 fight.

The story they ran this morning, Eyman again solicits donors for salary fund, was based off of a fundraising e-mail from Tim Eyman.

Eyman continues to beg supporters for money for his "Help Us Help Ourselves" compensation fund. The story was written by the AP's David Ammons, who has done this several times before. What we don't understand is how this is news. Eyman has been asking his supporters for money for years.

There wasn't any newsworthy event. Fundraising emails from Eyman should not be turned around into news stories. Shame on the Times for printing this non-story.

If you want to read it, you can go to the Times' website and find it yourself. No reason for us to link to it.

The Times also had an editorial this morning on I-776 that we didn't like:
The situation is this: The vote of the people to repeal the car-tab tax came three years after Sound Transit had signed a contract pledging a 0.4 percent car-tabs tax, and a 0.3 percent sales tax, as security for $350 million in bonds. Under the Constitution, neither the Legislature nor the voters can retroactively change a bond contract. Sound Transit argues that therefore it can ignore I-776 and collect its share of the car-tab tax indefinitely, including pledging it for the sale of new bonds.

In a brief mainly written by James Pharris, senior assistant attorney general, the state argues against this. Sound Transit, the state says, must follow the law to the extent that it can, which means using the car-tab money only for repayment of the old bonds. After that debt is satisfied, it must end the tax because it has no legal authority to collect it.

Apparently, no Washington court has ever made an order like this. It is necessary here, otherwise a law passed by the people and validated by the court will be tossed aside like a gum wrapper, and we arrive at a point at which the people cannot repeal any tax.
That vote of the people? A statewide vote which went against the principle of home rule. The combined Sound Transit taxing district voted I-776 down, and the Times editorial board knows it.

When we talk about "voters' wishes" we're talking about people in Aberdeen, Spokane, or Vancouver who are essentially telling Sound Transit what forms of taxes it can levy to collect revenue. Sound Transit's own voters voted against repealing the tax.

The intent of I-776 was to destroy light rail. That goal was not accomplished. And I-776 was a shoddily written initiative. It was declared by a King County judge to be afoul of the state Constitution.

The Supreme Court decision upholding was divided, 6 to 3, with three justices believing 776 to be unconstitutional.

The voters authorized Sound Transit to collect revenue. In the I-776 vote, Sound Transit's voters essentially reauthorized the agency to collect revenue when they voted no.

But that "vote of confidence" means nothing legally because an initiative has the same effect as a statewide law, and local governments do not have guaranteed independence.

We believe Sound Transit is doing the right thing by continuing to follow its mission. It serves the Central Puget Sound, not the state of Washington. Other Washingtonians should not be deciding what Sound Transit can and can't do to serve its own taxpayers.

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