Tim Eyman pal Michael Baumgartner prefiles amendment to repeal “paramount duty” language in Washington State Constitution

In a fair­ly bla­tant attempt to get some atten­tion for him­self and steer pub­lic dis­course away from ful­ly fund­ing our pub­lic schools, extrem­ist right wing Sen­a­tor Michael Baum­gart­ner of Spokane has pre­filed a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment that would repeal the mem­o­rable open­ing words of Arti­cle IX of the Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion (“It is the para­mount duty of the state to make ample pro­vi­sion for the edu­ca­tion of all chil­dren resid­ing with­in its bor­ders, with­out dis­tinc­tion or pref­er­ence on account of race, col­or, caste, or sex.”).

Baum­gart­ner, who is one of Tim Eyman’s go-to guys in the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate’s Repub­li­can cau­cus, appears to be bor­row­ing a page from Eyman’s play­book by delib­er­ate­ly intro­duc­ing an amend­ment he knows is non­vi­able but which he expects will rile up pro­gres­sives and gen­er­ate press cov­er­age for himself.

Baum­gart­ner is ful­ly aware his pro­pos­al has zero chance of pass­ing either the Sen­ate or the House. Con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ments require a two-thirds vote of each house to pass, mean­ing any suc­cess­ful amend­ment has to have bipar­ti­san support.

It’s doubt­ful Baum­gart­ner would be able to even get most of his Repub­li­can col­leagues to back this trav­es­ty of an amend­ment. There’s unlike­ly to be much of an appetite in the cau­cus for this, even though many oth­er Sen­ate Repub­li­cans are just as extreme as Baum­gart­ner is (ahem, Doug Ericksen).

But he’s prob­a­bly at least hop­ing to secure a com­mit­tee hear­ing on this res­o­lu­tion of his. And he should­n’t get one. The Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate has very impor­tant busi­ness to attend to this upcom­ing ses­sion, most notably com­ply­ing with this very part of the Con­sti­tu­tion Baum­gart­ner wants to repeal.

No one’s time should be wast­ed debat­ing this ridicu­lous amend­ment, which is a full-fledged assault on the val­ues that Wash­ing­ton State was found­ed on.

Most of the men who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the writ­ing of Wash­ing­ton’s Con­sti­tu­tion were Repub­li­cans. Pro­gres­sive Repub­li­cans. Were any of them around today, I imag­ine they’d be pret­ty dis­gust­ed to see an elect­ed mem­ber of their par­ty try­ing to wipe away per­haps the finest words they left behind for future generations.

Arti­cle IX, con­cern­ing edu­ca­tion, dates back to state­hood, as does its pre­am­ble. Only an extrem­ist would seek to sab­o­tage Arti­cle IX by repeal­ing its pre­am­ble and insert­ing lan­guage explic­it­ly allow­ing pub­lic dol­lars to go to pri­vate­ly-run schools — which is what Baum­gart­ner’s amend­ment does.

Shame on Michael Baum­gart­ner for propos­ing this non­sense, and shame on any of his Repub­li­can col­leagues who dare give it any atten­tion whatsoever.

This upcom­ing ses­sion needs to be all about increas­ing state rev­enue so that our kids and teach­ers get the resources they need. NPI’s research shows an over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans believe our schools are under­fund­ed and sup­port reforms like a cap­i­tal gains tax to address that fund­ing cri­sis.

That’s what the Leg­is­la­ture needs to be talk­ing about — not this silliness.