Senate leadership demonstrates hypocrisy, constitutional ignorance
Posted by Amber Gunn - March 04, 2008Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown’s lawsuit against Initiative 601’s tax hike limits hinges on one argument. As she told the Spokesman Review:
The state constitution says nothing about needing a supermajority for tax increases. And initiatives, she says, cannot amend the constitution.
Senator Brown’s position on supermajority votes is astoundingly hypocritical. Consider the various rules adopted by the Senate that require a supermajority:
-Rule 35 requires a two-thirds vote to suspend the rules.
-Rule 53 requires a 60 percent vote to adopt amendments to the budget, capital budget or supplemental budget.
-Rule 56 requires a two-thirds vote to introduce bills after the cutoff date.
-Rule 69 permits executive sessions of committees for confirmation appointment hearings with a two-thirds vote.
Keep in mind that these rules were specifically affirmed by Senator Brown herself in the 2007 session(SR 8601).
As the Washington Policy Center points out, “If lawmakers are able to place additional restrictions not found in the Constitution on the passage of legislation, so too can the people.”
Not only is Senator Brown’s position hypocritical, but it also demonstrates little knowledge of the state constitution.
No bill shall become a law unless on its final passage the vote be taken by yeas and nays, the names of the members voting for and against the same be entered on the journal of each house, and a majority of the members elected to each house be recorded thereon as voting in its favor.
The key phrase in the section is, “No bill shall become a law unless…” The passage does not read, “A bill shall become law when…”
The section lays out the minimal constitutional thresholds that must be reached in order for a bill to become law. The constitutional drafters were concerned with preventing bill passage with less than a majority, and rejected a proposal to allow passage by a mere quorum vote. (Tacoma Daily Ledger, August 9, 1889).
The process to pass a new law is deliberately slow, and ensures that, at a minimum, the bill is approved by a full majority of both houses.
Nothing in the passage prevents the people from creating extra barriers for the legislature to pass a new bill, or in the case of I-601, only bills that would raise taxes.
In fact, Article I, Section 1 of our constitution reads: “All political power is inherent in the people, and governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
Article II, Section 2 reaffirms the people’s supremacy: “The legislative authority of the state of Washington shall be vested in the legislature . . . but the people reserve to themselves the power to propose bills, laws, and to enact or reject the same at the polls, independent of the legislature…”
In his recent opinion of the 601 court case, Justice Jim Johnson wrote, “Our government exists ‘to protect and maintain individual rights.’ Representative government is a tool to those ends, and when not fulfilling the purpose of protecting individual rights, the people can protect those rights on their own with an initiative or a referendum.”
Clearly, the legislature has been neglecting its primary duty of protecting individual rights, mainly, the right to hang onto the fruits of one’s labor. No human owns anything more absolutely than his or her own labor—the right to choose for whom and under what conditions he or she is willing to work.
For most people, money is the result of years of their lives spent working. It is their time, and therefore their lifeblood.
To protect the fruits of their labor, the people have approved the two-thirds threshold for tax increases twice in the last fifteen years. The legislature wants to undo that in a week.
- Shall our legislature control the people, or shall the people control the legislature?
- Shall legislators or other officers be the servants or the masters of the public?
- Shall we have a common-sense, business government, or shall we allow privilege-seeking interests and politicians to run the state for us?
Those were the questions presented to the people of Washington nearly 100 years ago when they were asked to approve the right of initiative in the form of the Seventh Amendment.
Today, we have a new power struggle transpiring, but the questions are the same.
Who should prevail? The constitution is clear. Who will prevail? That’s why we’re fighting. The right outcome is not a guarantee.
Thoughts? Add Comment -
Anita Messex said on Mar 09 2008 at 6:17pm
I consider private property as a personal choice. It is earned by an individual, the greed of government and lack of comprehension by elected officials has become more than a petty annoyance. It has become a festering sore worth of major lancing.