NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Friday, March 1st, 2019

VICTORY! Washington State Senate approves legislation to repeal Tim Eyman’s push polls

The effort to per­ma­nent­ly abol­ish Tim Eyman’s waste­ful and decep­tive push polls is offi­cial­ly halfway to the fin­ish line. This morn­ing, the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate approved Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Kud­er­er’s Sen­ate Bill 5224 on a twen­ty-sev­en to twen­ty bipar­ti­san vote, send­ing it over to the House of Representatives.

Enact­ment of SB 5224, one of NPI’s pri­or­i­ty bills for 2019, would mean Wash­ing­to­ni­ans would no longer see “advi­so­ry votes” on their bal­lots every Novem­ber. We call the “advi­so­ry votes” Tim Eyman’s push polls because that is what they real­ly are. At NPI’s Per­ma­nent Defense project, we have a page that explains their true func­tion, which is to influ­ence pub­lic opin­ion, not mea­sure it.

Three Democ­rats — Reuven Car­lyle, Guy Palum­bo, and Emi­ly Ran­dall — sided with most of the Sen­ate’s twen­ty-one Repub­li­cans in oppo­si­tion to SB 5224.

Their votes were off­set by three Repub­li­cans who crossed over to help Democ­rats pass the bill: Hans Zeiger, Bar­bara Bai­ley, and Brad Hawkins. Not coin­ci­den­tal­ly, these Sen­a­tors all serve on the Sen­ate’s State Gov­ern­ment Com­mit­tee and heard tes­ti­mo­ny one month ago from NPI, the League of Women Vot­ers, and King Coun­ty Elec­tions Direc­tor Julie Wise in favor of abol­ish­ing Eyman’s push polls.

The full roll call vote on Sen­ate Bill 5224 was as fol­lows:

Roll Call
SB 5224
Advi­so­ry votes
3rd Read­ing & Final Passage
3/1/2019

Yeas: 27; Nays: 20; Excused: 2

Vot­ing Yea: Sen­a­tors Bai­ley, Bil­lig, Cleve­land, Con­way, Darneille, Das, Dhin­gra, Frockt, Hasegawa, Hawkins, Hunt, Keis­er, Kud­er­er, Liias, Lovelett, McCoy, Mul­let, Nguyen, Ped­er­sen, Rolfes, Sal­daña, Salomon, Takko, Van De Wege, Well­man, Wil­son (Claire), Zeiger

Vot­ing Nay: Sen­a­tors Beck­er, Braun, Brown, Car­lyle, Erick­sen, For­tu­na­to, Holy, Hon­ey­ford, King, O‘Ban, Pad­den, Palum­bo, Ran­dall, Rivers, Schoesler, Shel­don, Short, Wag­oner, War­nick, Wil­son (Lyn­da)

Excused: Sen­a­tors Hobbs, Walsh

We’ve pub­lished a state­ment thank­ing the Sen­ate over at Per­ma­nent Defense.

For us, Sen­ate Bill 5224 is not just about undo­ing a harm­ful Tim Eyman scheme. It is about tak­ing a stand in favor of elec­tions that mat­ter. It is about uphold­ing the prin­ci­ples of gath­er­ing good data. Pub­lic resources should not be wast­ed to put mes­sages on peo­ple’s bal­lots that are designed to influ­ence how they think.

For SB 5224 to reach Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee’s desk, it must pass the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. We’re excit­ed about the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with our elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the peo­ple’s House to get this bill across the fin­ish line.

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One Comment

  1. Great result for all involved.

    # by Jan Brooks :: March 1st, 2019 at 7:46 PM
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