Comments

1

Face it folks!
WA state is the leader in a lot of areas!
Bow down to Washington!
(With recognition to our Cougar friends!)

2

@1 pat L: Agreed and seconded. I've always said we're the smarter, saner Washington.

3

The bill will also change minds of some otherwise great candidates from getting in. Any blemish can be extrapolated (for better or worse). I'm not saying this is a bad bill, but it does have that ramification.

4

Seattle: Can we fix Boeing’s tax breaks?

Politicians: [crickets]

Seattle: Can we fix affordable housing?

Politicians: [crickets]

Seattle: Can we have progressive taxation?

Politicians: [crickets]

Seattle: Can we fix unemployment insurance law?

Politicians: [crickets]

Seattle: Can you do anything progressive?

Politicians: We’re going to codify a meaningless roadblock to the ballot for presidency, so you may not have all of the options that everybody else does.

Democrats: YAASSSSSS KWWEEEEEEENNN!!

5

Shorter Conservatives: "If you haven't done anything wrong, you've got nothing to hide - except when it comes to your taxes, cuz everybody cheats on those, amiright?"

6

I don't see the need compare conservative vs. liberal as you can quickly enumerate a lengthy list by either of various illegalities on their taxes.

A perfectly good candidate may have not reported consulting income years ago, so they're forever damaged goods?

This is why we have such bad politics. We unnecessarily expect our politicians to be saints, and when they disappoint us, we pat ourselves on the back on how wise we are to be so jaded.

7

So does that mean AOC will have to show where her campaign money went?

8

I have no problem with this. But I bet it backfires in the future.

9

@8 You can still vote for the crook if you want to. But this would make it harder to pretend that's not what you're doing.

I kind of doubt this will be "tied up in the courts", though. If John Roberts wants to do Donald Trump this favor, he doesn't have to wait for it to work its way up through appeals. USSC sure didn't twiddle their thumbs waiting for Bush v. Gore to arrive on his desk.

10

@4
Yes, but Seattle crickets are progressive, cage-free crickets!

12

@6 "I don't see the need compare conservative vs. liberal"

The bill was voted on along party lines so there is a lot of comparing to do. Whatever individuals of both party have done in the past, there is currently only one party openly willing to bamboozle the public into voting for people who don't believe the ABC of responsible citizenry, paying one's taxes.

13

Oh. No. Whatever shall we do with such a narrowed field of candidates!

I insist we be allowed to vote for lying dirtbags that refuse to follow the most basic civic responsibility to fund our institutions that they seek to be elected to represent!

Won’t someone think of the criminals, the corrupt, and the tax cheats!

14

PS. The irony is Republicans have already demonstrated they don’t care about corruption or tax fraud.

You concern trolls realize this just says you have to release your taxes. Not that you’re barred from running if you claimed some silly deductions on those taxes. This hand wringing is just rightwing concern trolling and talking points. I guarantee you all this bill will do is simply confirm what we already know - that the right thinks corruption is cool and carrying about democracy is for suckers.

I guarantee you not one rightwing candidate would drop out of a race because he was busted lying about thier income, cheated on thier taxes, or displayed a clear chain of conflict of interests. They do not give a shit.

15

These state laws are going to face a really tough fight when they inevitably get challenged by the courts.

Historically, when states attempt to enforce policy decisions on electoral qualifications or term limits that the constitution does not impose, they are stuck down in the courts. It makes sense: if states get to decide the qualifications for federal elections, it kind of invalidates the very idea of federal power, and it would cease to be a federal legislature.

U.S. term Limits v. Thornton, in addition to Rebecca McDowell Cook v. Donald J Gralike and Mike Harman set these precedents:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/99-929

Basically, federal elections mean federal requirements, and the states have not been allowed to substitute their own requirements for federal requirements in the past. I doubt this law, or the other similar state laws being proposed will pass the courts.

16

“We unnecessarily expect our politicians to be saints”

What? Are you brain damaged? This is demonstrably false. We just elected Donald fucking Trump!

They days of expecting politicians to be saints is long over.

Transparency of income is a bare minimum! We’re not asking what porn candidates download for fuck sake.

Uncovering criminality, conflict of interests and fraud through full income transparency in a candidates taxes is crucial to democracy and almost every other western democracy does it as a necessary step to elected office and those countries seem to find no shortage of so-called “saints.”

Clearly corruption, tax fraud, and payola are so normalized it only underscores why this law is necessary.

17

@9, I was more thinking someone's rags-to-riches or bootstraps story will fall apart. There are those clowns on both sides.

18

@15 so how does your amateur constitutional law expertises explain the plethora of voter ID laws that have withstood court challenges?

(Which cereal box top did you mail in to get your JD again? Cap’n Crunch U? Trix College?)

I mean, great. So all this handwringing about “narrowing the field to saints” is for naught.

So. Then this law gets struck down but if enough states attempt such laws we have a more check boxes checked to pursue a federal law.

19

@18: I do not know why you are so mad, but I really do not see the cause. Anyway, I linked to the supreme court decision so that you would not have to take my word for it. You could have just read the link, but I am going to assume you were too lazy. You could have also just Googled the court cases and read about them, but I am going to assume you were too lazy.

Second, if you thought about it for one second, you would see why voter ID laws have nothing to do with this. Voter ID laws do not make extra requirements for federal candidates that supercede federal requirements.

I can try to explain it using smaller words if you need me to, just let me know!

20

@11,

What about my idiot co-worker Shannon, is this gonna have any impact on her? Can I use this legislation to implore her to stop transferring customers to my extension without even letting me know beforehand? God, I'm so tired of her shit!

21

@15 whatever the outcome in court, these votes always show which side a) is rotten to the core and b) readily fetishizes, as if it were a religious relic, a~300 year old document in need of updating to meet modern needs.

22

@15: So strange that conservatives, the party fetishizing "states' rights!" to the point of absurdity, the ones (like yourself) saying that the states should be the highest authority of government, are not the ones championing this measure. It's almost as if they don't REALLY believe this if it suits them...

23

@15 You are conflating several different concepts.

If you were correct, all states would currently follow a uniform approach to presidential elections. They don't.

States follow a variety of approaches, as evidenced by our own ridiculous system here, with a caucus approach for democratic primaries, and an election for republican primaries.

24

@22: It is not absurd at all, really. This has nothing to do with anything but giving Trump a fuck you and trying to force him to show his tax returns or harm him in the next election. So it makes perfect sense that the party Trump is opposed to is doing it, and the party he is a part of is opposing it.

Also, this has little to do with who has ultimate sovereignty, and everything to do with the separation of powers. If the states are allowed to define federal law on their own, then the separation of powers is moot, and the distinction between states and federal vanishes. Which of course, invalidates the very constitution itself.

There is more to this stuff than "Fuck Droomph!" and partisan cheerleading.

25

@23: Those are state primaries, not federal elections. The states can administer and run their election processes how they wish, but that is seperate from defining the very qualifications for candidacy, as outlined by federal law and the constitution. The courts have been consistently clear about this.

Damn people, do you all just know absolutely nothing about the very basis of the power structure of this country as defined by the constitution?

Also, you don't have to take my word for any of it, The Supreme Court already did. If you do not want to believe me, go read what they have said about this topic. It is pretty clear.

27

@25 You realize these bills were drafted by lawyers, right? Patty Kuderer received her JD from William Mitchell College. Jamie Pedersen was a working attorney for Preston Gates & Ellis and has his JD for Yale.

Your premise is that lawyers — not pretend internet lawyers like you who gleaned some shit from talking points on KIRO— but actual lawyers with law degrees never thought once that a bill they proposed might face court challenges.

And the political strategy isn't so much to catch Trump but to catch the people opposing the bill. Because most Americans SUPPORT full financial disclosure for presidential candidates.

And sorry this isn't just some partisan gotcha since 23 states and counting are considering passing or have passed the same sort of law.

The very fact that nearly every democratic country on earth requires full financial transparency for political office makes this a sensible and clearly non-partisan issue. That is if the party opposing the law wasn't thoroughly corrupt. Which the modern Republican party is.

Clearly you don't care about corrupt politicians but it's pretty handy for the rest of us as a voters to know which dirtbags think corruption is cool.

28

I mean I'll give one of resident goobers a little credit for actually posting a cite even if it doesn't prove what he thinks it does. At least that some kind advancement from his usual wild proclamations that gets batted down by facts.

But so far my favorite stupid argument against this bill comes from up top with the one dude whose argument is that if we don't solve a laundry list of intractable decades long wide ranging social problems first we cat tackle anything else.

So, sorry Phinney Ridge. I know you guys wanted that stop sign but since we can't immediately "fix affordable housing" (what ever that might mean) we just can't try to fix anything else!

29

@3 what desirable candidates in the past fifty years might have been deterred by the routine of disclosing returns? Feel free to speculate on might have beens even.

30

@24: "...this has little to do with who has ultimate sovereignty, and everything to do with the separation of powers. If the states are allowed to define federal law on their own, then the separation of powers is moot, and the distinction between states and federal vanishes. Which of course, invalidates the very constitution itself."

And yet voter ID requirements in an election of any level is super cool, even though it's not mandated by federal law. Weird...

31

25
You are wasting your breath.
These Leftist morons know no history, no civics, no American Government, nothing about the Federalist Papers or why our Constitution says what it does and what makes ours the greatest form of government the human race has ever produced.
They are ignorant spoiled petulant children who inherited a marvelous civilization and are destroying and consuming it as fast as they can; locusts.
Mercifully, soon they will destroy themselves.
But don't pop any popcorn.
It is a tragic spectacle.

32

@31: You're funny. Tell me, when getting ready to cosplay Our Founding Fathers(tm) do you powder your own wig or do you send it out?

34

Republicans are horrible people. Tax cheats are also horrible people, but since most tax cheats are Republicans, I pretty much covered it in the first sentence.

35

@27: You have obviously met very few lawyers. Lawyers are mercenaries. They don't care if the law they wrote will be struck down, they got paid to write it. By your logic,. the Supreme Court is useless, because we have random lawyers to hash it out ahead of time.

@30: Those are two very different things, state election laws are not, and do not supercede federal candidate requirements, as outlined in the constitution. They affect voters, not candidates. Keep up.

@33: It's also so funny when you get super bitter when people dare disagree with your opinions.

36

@35: LOL.
The lawyers who wrote this bill are the state senators who introduced it, not randos—who “don't care if the law they wrote will be struck down, they got paid to write it”
Sometimes in your endless need to own the libs you are really dumb.


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