That's a lot of fucks. The Seattle Times editorial board must support the initiative process or something.

We deserve an initiative process where signature gathering is done online, not by paid gatherers who probably make $10-12 an hour as mercenaries.

I haven't signed a petition since I moved here in 1996. They're all bad. Every one. Because our representatives are supposed to govern based on weighing many options for the greater good, and initiatives ignore anything else except for their own pet interests. In the end, a dysfunctional government is far better than a dysfunctional initiative.

I think the funny will hit home when booze prices go THROUGH THE ROOF on Friday! But don't worry...the "market" will eventually lower those prices. Right?

I bought enough vodka, scotch and gin to keep me well stocked for a year or so.

@4, I bet you at least 75% of those who sign petitions can't name their state representatives in Olympia.

We vote for representatives to represent us and if you don't like them vote in someone else.

One change would do the trick: Prohibit paying for signatures.

Shared and much appreciated!

I was saying this about the initiative process eight years ago. Too bad it took a pet issue for Goldy to realize it.

Was there ever a "golden age" for the initiative process? California's Prop 13 disaster was way back in 1978, and I doubt that's the first bad apple. With the exception of initiatives from well-connected crazies like Tim Eyman, almost all of them seem to be written exclusively for the benefit of corporations, labor unions, or lawyers.

@9: "A pet issue"...? The initiative process is my pet issue. Or maybe you're not familiar with I-831, my 2003 initiative to officially proclaim Tim Eyman a "horse's ass"?

@10: Yes, there was a "golden age" for initiatives. I'm too lazy to look up the number or year, but right-wing 29th District Democrat "Slim Rasmussen" used the process to beat big business in favor of consumers. The dairy industry had successfully kept margarine from competing with butter in Washington until Rasmussen brought an initiatve to change the law to the ballot by personally (and with a few helpers) going door to door in communities around the state for signatures. Despite being outspent significantly in the campaign, his initiative was approved by voters.

You want appointed judges? Like they don't have enough power as it is. We would still be stuck with Sanders if it were up to you.

With respect to liquor, one thing that has not been discussed -- yet -- is whether I-1183 had any effect on WA State's ban on out-of-state liquor shipments.

Many states allow residents to order liquor on the Internet and have it shipped here. When the Soviet liquor monopoly ruled this state, that channel was blocked. If it has now opened up, it will be a powerful force in holding prices down.

Absent that, I think you're going to see some bootlegging from low-tax states into Washington.

thanks, Goldy! Been waiting years for someone to say this!

THE GOLDEN MOMENT?

Repeal of the sales tax on food and medical drugs. Legislators cried the state would collapse, and, yes this tax was a giant cash cow in that era.

Repealed by vote of the people, 1982, modern era, state govt. survived.

@16: Last year The Stranger claimed that the exemption for food was a huge "loophole", and closing it could solve the state's budget crisis. True story!

(Yes, I know that the punchline of that particular article was that 90% of the money lost to "loopholes" wasn't actually worth recovering.)

Suggestion for fix:

Allow people to sign AGAINST an initiative. Each signature against negates a signature for. All signature gatherers would be required to collect for and against signatures.

We can all truly blame Tim Eyman for creating this reprehensible shithole.

Is an initiative to end initiatives an option?

I volunteered to gather signatures a couple of times and the for-hire gatherers couldn't believe I was refusing the $2 per name they were getting. I could have been making upwards of $30/hour. In the end, the initiative I supported was voted down by a disinformed public after the corporate opposition outspent the grassroots effort 10:1.

About a third of the way down, you call Tim Eyman a whore. Using that word as an insult relies on the assumption that sex work is particularly dirty, and that by calling Eyman a whore, you're saying his political actions are especially vile. It's also a word that is specifically used to police women's sexuality. I think you know better than to go slinging anti-sex worker, misogynistic language around like that.

I agree that Tim Eyman is a manipulative, irresponsible political player, but I don't have to insult sex workers and women to say that.

Thanks for your insights on the evils of the initiative. In concept, it can be an effective tool. In the hands of Eyman, it is a destructive force against all that elected officials have to offer. Why do we bother voting for representatives when Eyman demands all decisions be made by the "people?"

I appreciate all that you have to say; I just wonder why it is necessary to constantly lace your writing with "fuck." Makes me think you must have a limited vocabulary.

How about that initiative that proclaimed hydro power was not renewable? Thanks to that idiocy, a vote of he people overruled reality.

@24: I apologize for disparaging sex workers by comparing them to Tim Eyman.

The people is dumb and ain;t gots any money. They gets what they deserves whan they vote on shit they ain't no anything about axcept what the teevee said.

Y'all think yall so smart up there, but weuns here in Sippi no you fuckers dont no what the hell your doin anymore then Cleetus can figger out why the govment takes are guns and muny an wont let us drive are trucks in the river no more. Yall think you no how to fix innernational economy and make evrybody rich, wen you dont even no how tof ix the rowd when it floods evry spring (you gets a jon boat). Yall are a bunch of dam idiots.

We can all truly blame Tim Eyman for creating this reprehensible shithole.

And World War II was Hitler's fault.

We can all truly blame Tim Eyman for creating this reprehensible shithole.

Yep, and World War II was Hitler's fault.

The initiative process was written into western states' constitutions to avoid the kind of machine political control by Irish-American Catholics in places like Chicago, New York and Boston. The initiative and referendum system is based on deep suspicion of government as well as Catholics & Democrats.

While the people have had some notable victories in Washington - the nation's best abortion law, death with dignity and medical marijuana - the system is now used by the super-rich to convince stupid people to vote against their interests. It's astonishing how often voters fail to look beyond the too-good-to-be-true lies - LOWER TAXES! CHEAPER BOOZE!

Since the Supremes granted natural personhood to corporations and money equals speech, we are pretty much fucked. We could get rid of initiative & referendum via a constitutional convention, but that would put every aspect of WA's constitution on the table.

It's no coincidence that legalized gay marriage has survived only in the states without initiative & referendum. WA is turning into a shithole that hates the poor and allows anybody with a pulse to carry a gun. Perhaps Tim Eyman's next ballot measure will follow Jonathan Swift's "Modest Proposal" -and make it legal to kill and eat the unemployed.

The only thing Goldy proves here is that it is Goldy that is an asshole. I'm curious, Goldy, how did you become so miserable? Did someone beat you? Molest you? Was your daddy mean to you? Did your mommy not love you? Happy people just don't type the way that you do, and it just makes me wonder what happened to make you so miserable. I feel pity for you, and hope that you are at least kind to your family, because you certainly not kind to the public.

Lots of Gold-haters in this thread. It's too bad that no one here who actually bleated that this was a poorly written article had the substance in their words to criticize any of Goldy's substance.

Then again, the facts of the results of the citizen initiative process all point to the general truth of this article. No, there's no solution posted, but the increased awareness of the limits of the initiative process and the generally reprehensible effects is the first nail in the coffin for the process.

Knowledge is power; please try to use what brains you have.

*Suggested reading on the matter: Pardise Lost: California's Experiment, America's future.

Excellent breakdown of everything that is wrong with the initiative process if Goldy's fuck-yous were too low brow for y'all.

Goldy - The entire country is devolving into a "libertarian hellhole". Best stick to your guns and push back here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiIZLDeMO…

You just can't stop licking that Dunmire lollipop, eh Goldy? How many years has it been?

Try growth, it's good for the human spirit...

Thanks for the article Goldy. Anyone else notice Californians moving here in droves? They're actually fleeing the apocalypse they voted for with the same type of initiatives we're considering or have already voted for here. Will they vote the same way they did in California and send us into the same kind of tailspin? Where will they flee to next?

Thank, fucking, god, for someone who is so unabashedly able to call out the modern mass of frustration that is representative democracy.

It doesn't need fixing, it needs abolishing.

and @ 1: Getting involved is a great thing to do. that is unless it's primary motivator is one's own $elf interest. Or if getting involved isn't an option because one has insufficient time, stable housing, food, education, or other freedoms that allow for the privilege of participation. Oh yeah, and i forgot to tell you (how Times of me!) that the aforementioned sufferings ARE realities in our community.

and

@ 24: nice call

@ 32: you're great

@ 33: grow up, loose your ability to abide, and get frustrated

@ 35: chill and check the redundancy

@ y'all: I want a Dunmire lollipop

@13 – actually, Sanders himself would disagree. Or he did in eastern Washington several years ago. There, he spoke ill of voters as a collective group – noting their tendency to be poorly informed about the issues and candidates on ballots. He commented similarly on “elected officials” – noting that they are, in general, patsies for narrow special interests. When asked after his talk if he, then, thought judgeships should be appointed positions in Washington, he responded “no” and added, very frankly, that no one would appoint him to any position. There was nothing in his inflection or demeanor to suggest that he was anything but honest in all of his statements. Almost as stunning to me at the time: his twisted pride and public statements about how, in a previous campaign, he had specifically targeted the electorate’s ignorance - and more specifically had focused on rural voters with name associations, of his to “Colonel Sanders” and his opponent’s as being “foreign-sounding” - because, in reality, his opponent was so highly qualified. But then, I believe he was there at the invitation of The Federalist Society……

Washington's initiative process amends Lincoln's adage about fooling the people. Given enough money, you can fool enough of the people enough of the time.

Goldy's language is perfectly justified.

We are a herd of idiots led by cowards.

Emanazi and his KKKohorts are attempting to amend the state cunstitution via the initiative;that is not permissible under state law.(Go to ballotpedia's Washington home page:you'll notice there's a red dot next to 'amending the constitution via popular vote').CHANGE THE CONSTITUTION SO THIS FEUDALISTIC SHIT WILL STOP!!!(Sue in federal court).Class- or mass-action lawsuits,anybody???Pfft!!!

Okay, I'm a little late to this party -- but I find myself a little amused by the rant. Yesterday I was looking at the list of initiatives that have won approval over the years, on the secretary of state's website, and I was doing a little bit of calculating in my head and a little on my actual honest-to-god calculator. I don't have a statistical analysis, but it looks to me like better than half of the initiatives that have passed in this state did so with more than 60 percent of the vote. A large percentage got 2/3 or more. Which tells you that sometimes Olympia's process is broken and the folks at the statehouse fail to listen to the wishes of the people. Yeah, sure, you can argue that sometimes legislators know better and they are looking to protect the rights of the minority -- but it betrays a lack of understanding of the way the process really works. It is a hundred times more likely that a special interest has worked the process. The best illustration is I-180, from 1952, the most popular initiative in the state's history -- and one that has been referenced above. For years the dairy industry worked the Legislature so that it would never permit the sale of something that looked like butter but wasn't. All margarine had to be white. They'd sell you a color-packet you could mix in with it, but you could never buy colored oleomargarine. And in 1952, the voters said enough with this stupidity. They approved it 84-16. Representative democracy didn't work. Direct democracy did. In 1973, before paid signature gathering became commonplace and volunteer campaigns were the rule, I-282 set the all-time record for the number of signatures -- 699,000 -- and the speed of the campaign -- 17 or 18 days, depending on how you count things. What Goldy is objecting to is the fact that during the years of Democratic control of the statehouse, e.g., the last 28 years, conservative-themed initiatives have frequently emerged in response to the actions of the largely Democrat-controlled Legislature. But I wonder how he would feel if the shoe was on the other foot, the Republicans had been in control forever, and it was liberal-themed initiatives that were winning passage. Betcha he would be celebrating the process. The funniest damn thing about this funny damn rant is the fact that Goldy is standing up for small-r republicanism. There's no denying it -- that's what he's doing. But it's the kind of thought, if he chooses to recognize the truth of his position, that ought to make him gulp. David Goldstein, republican. Whoa!

I'm actually interested in your comments on the most recent two initiatives up there. What do you think?

WORD see I-1329 this year www.wamend.org