Evan Smith: Fairley defends suspending I-960

By Evan Smith
ShorelineAreaNews Politics Writer

State Sen. Darlene Fairley, D-32nd District, (pictured) defends the Legislature’s suspending Initiative 960 as a necessary step toward saving necessary government programs.

I-960, which voters passed in 2007, requires a two-thirds vote of both houses of the Legislature or a statewide popular vote for any tax increase.

The Legislature can suspend or amend an initiative after two years.

Fairley and the majority of senators voted last week to suspend the initiative until the 2011 legislative session. The House of Representatives will act this week on a similar bill.

She said she had heard from hundreds of constituents “telling me that they want me to vote for new revenue in order to prevent more cuts.

“We’re talking programs that are truly necessary for our vulnerable populations—seniors, children and the disabled,” she added. “I understand this is not the time for tax increases, but surely we can see our way to pay a little more to make sure seniors can stay in their homes, or to keep the gifted children’s program or to provide exams for low-income pregnant women.”

The Senate considered one bill that would have suspended just the requirement for a two-thirds vote to impose or increase taxes but, eventually, it passed a bill that suspended the entire initiative, including provisions that involve informing voters about upcoming legislative tax votes, printing information about legislators’ tax votes in the voters’ pamphlet and taking advisory votes on emergency tax increases.

I asked Fairley why the Legislature should suspend the transparency provisions in addition to the two-thirds requirement.

Her answer:

“It made sense to suspend everything,” she said Monday. “Reporting costs money and is meaningless when the rest of it is suspended.”

Fairley said she had hoped that the Legislature wouldn’t have to make cuts on top of the deep cuts of last year, but she said, “We are going to cut and people will be mad. The rest will be mad because we will also have new revenue (in whatever form).”

What kind of revenue?

“It could be one big thing or a bunch of little things, “ she said.

Fairley said she favors the one big thing, but Rep. Ruth Kagi, another Lake Forest Park Democrat, said in her report on this web site a couple of weeks ago that the Legislature could close much of the gap by closing loopholes and changing outdated tax rules. She said that doing those small things requires suspending the initiative.

Kagi noted that suspending and amending initiatives in hard times is not new, pointing out that thee Legislature has done it with citizen initiatives to provide cost-of-living pay increases for teachers and to reduce class sizes.