New Initiative they must kill.Initiative to restore financial and legal parity between citizens and their government.

Initiative to tie all pay, benefits, privileges and legal accountability, immunities & responsibilities of those receiving any moneys derived from any tax to not exceed the average income, benefits, privileges or legal accountability, immunities & responsibilities enjoyed & obtainable by the people they serve.

This Initiative does not set any maximum pay or benefits of any kind, but it does insure the people will not be left out of, or excluded from in any way, of enjoying all the benefits we give to our servants.

We do not, and will not force any to work for us in any position or for wages they are not happy with.

If they refuse to accept all the terms and conditions addressed in this initiative they are free to look for employment elsewhere, the same as the people of Washington State have to do, when their income or job circumstances change.

We fully realize this will create hardships for some, but this is the same hardships the people have always had to endure.

We are not asking for more ourselves than which we give our servants, nor are we willing to give our servants more than we have.

We freely give to them all the rights and privileges we enjoy, but we cannot give more than we have.

This initiative will pass or fail not by the actions of the people of Washington State, but by the Governments and our servants acts or inactions.

This is a grass roots action, with no money or agenda other than restoring to the people what once was theirs.

We will be doing changes to this until we word it correctly, and then we will send it out for the people to copy and collect signatures on their own.

We think if we can get this out where it will be discussed, and we gather the required 200.000 signatures to get on the ballot, this will send the biggest alarm ever, that the natives are restless and politics as usual, is dead.

I urge all who are not now registered to vote because you have giving up ever seeing any chance to change things, get registered now.

If this is passed by referendum it will be the law that effects the most changes this century.

Just by being on the ballot this will cause changes to happen.

If the people are not happy with the changes before the election, they can force more changes than The Powers That Be, want.

Big changes will happen simply by passing this Initiative.

Please take the time to think through, what this initiative will force to happen.

The public service will most likely quit in mass.

The powers that be, will spend millions to defeat this.

Everyone will tell you we cannot, or best not do this, as it will truly make the sky fall. And it will, for some.

There will be all kinds of claims of the damage this will cause to the Bureaucracy, and it will be true.

Our servants will claim they cannot live on this huge pay cut, or do without all the goodies, which most of us can only dream of.

Why must we suffer in silence and just continue to pay the bill (taxes), when we can do something?

They will have to adapt the same as we do, or find a better paying job elsewhere. Good luck.

We will lose a lot of good people, who now work for the government, and this will be true, but we will also get rid of the bad ones also, so it may even out.

We all know we cannot continue business as usual; its broke and has been for a long time.

Will this fix it? No but we now can address the problems with their full attention to what we say.

This is the 2x4 meant to get their attention, but we have to be ready to use it, or lose it.

Now it up to the government to change, or we will do it for them.

Any suggestion on changes needed is most welcome.

Send any suggestions into the editor at lewisnews.com

-- S Schantz (editor@lewisnews.com), November 21, 1999

Answers

To respond, the first thing to get clear is exactly what your proposed initiative would say, and how it would be implemented. What you posted gives me no clue. How would public employment be tied to the community employment? How do you deal with situations like school districts in depressed areas, that still need to attract qualified teachers? What would this do to initiate the mass resignations, that you seem to expect?

Initial reaction: This looks like an anarchists fire bomb. You don't care what damage you do, to make your point. As you expressed it, it is unlikely to get the signatures, and less likely to pass if it does.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), November 21, 1999.

Like it says, we are still working on this for wording, and looking for suggestions. We have had lots of feedback on this and most like the idea as it is, but we know we have to make changes. This is the third change now. This is not easy, but we will end up with something that will fly. We know what we want to do, How the final wording will be will depend on the input we get. http://www.lewisnews.com/

-- S Schantz (editor@lewisnews.com), November 21, 1999.

I read the article, and the only information on the content of this new initiative was in these two paragraphs:

"Instead of looking for ways they can eliminate waste and streamline government, they are scrambling to shove through every tax increase they possibly can before I-695 takes effect. We can't let them get away with it. Consequently, one of the provisions of the new initiative calls for the repeal of all the new taxes & fees passed since I-695 qualified for the ballot.

I guess we will have to keep hitting them again and again with the same political 2x4 to get their attention. We also close off their option of raising new taxes by pumping up property values with a cap on assessments. Once and for all, we take away their ability to threaten us with putting vehicles on property tax rolls by repealing the statute that allows for it."

A few quick points for your consideration:

1. On vehicles taxed as property, it is not a matter of a statute that allows for it. That was a problem because the initiative authors didn't do their homework. This seems to be a non-issue, since the legislature is expected to act on it in the next session in January; and fix the problem the initiative created.

2. On placing a cap on assessments, you will need to be very careful how this is done. The state constitution requires taxes to be applied equally on the same classes of property. Your proposal can't result in different tax rates applied to property in the same taxing district, or it will be unconstitutional. Currently, assessors are required to value property at the current market value, so that equity is maintained. If you intent to tinker with that, get some competent advice about the consequences this time.

3. As for repeal of the tax and fee increases passed after 695 qualified for the ballot, I presume you mean those that were not approved by the voters as prescribed in the initiative. The initiative had a 1/1/2000 effective date written into it, and the constitution states it would be effective 30 days after passage anyway. What did you think local governments would do, when you impose a revenue cut of up to 40% with no election opportunity available to propose replacement funding until February? They still need to fund a workable budget for 2000, and these communities DO NOT want a 40% reduction in local services. I don't know how legal your proposal is; but if you get the signatures and it gets on the November 2000 ballot, local governments that see it coming can get funding issues before their local voters at the same time or earlier. Some of them should have done that this time, if they suspected they would be expected to comply with it immediately in spite of the legal effective date.

4. I didn't see anything like the provision you originally stated, that would tie public employment to community standards (or something to that effect). If that is to be part of this next initiative, you will again have an initiative with two subjects.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), November 21, 1999.

This is a different Initiative than the son of I-695 which you address. This one is,Initiative to restore financial and legal parity between citizens and their government. Don't get them confussed. http://www.lewisnews.com/

-- S Schantz (editor@lewisnews.com), November 21, 1999.

excuse me for being uninformed on the proposed initiative, but how can taxes that were legally raised in response to 695 or not all be repealed?

Is there any ties to 695. If 695 is found unconstitutional, would this initiative be able to stand on its own?

-- jyjs (xxy@yts.com), November 21, 1999.

Ok. I see the article is the same as what S. Schantz posted. The only information on content seems to be:

"Initiative to tie all pay, benefits, privileges and legal accountability,immunities & responsibilities of those receiving any moneys derived from any tax to not exceed the average income, benefits, privileges or legal accountability, immunities & responsibilities enjoyed & obtainable by the people they serve.

This Initiative does not set any maximum pay or benefits of any kind, but it does insure the people will not be left out of, or excluded from in any way, of enjoying all the benefits we give to our servants."

I have some questions:

1. If the pay, etc. of public employees is not to exceed the "average income" etc. of the people they serve, how can it also "not set any maximum pay or benefits of any kind"? If it can't exceed the average, doesn't the average become the maximum for public employees? How are we to understand this apparent contradiction? Are you indicating that if the average income of a community is unlimited, the average will be unlimited, so the maximum is unlimited?

2. Since the average, in nearly any community, is at the level of the majority of the workers; it seems to me that the average will be about the pay rate for the mid-level workers in public employment. If that is the maximum, how does a community attract or promote qualified supervisors, managers, professional staff, etc.? Is this a one-wage-for-everyone initiative? Do they contract for "consultants" (at about twice the regular employee rates) to get these services?

3. Since the language includes benefits, accountability, privilages, immunities, and responsibilities; is that intended to make all community residents eligible for the city medical and dental plan, the state managed government employee retirement program, participation in the state managed deferred compensation investment program, the city established paid leave benefits, the city sick leave benefits, the city work schedule with paid holidays, etc.? What happens when residents in one location are within the boundary of 6 or 7 different local governments with somewhat different benefits, etc.? Do they pick the best set of benefits, and collect them from that local government?

4. Who is going to pay for the citizen benefits etc., since they would require a tax increase to fund? Or do you assume that the only workable resolution to this is that public employees will get no benefits at all?

That is enough for now. Your response to this will indicate whether this is entirely idiotic, or I have misunderstood the intent. As I said before, this sounds like an anarchist fire bomb, with no thought about the damage being done in order to make a point.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), November 22, 1999.

No public servant or official would receive better benefits, or be more or less accountable, receive more or less privileges, no immunities that is not obtainable by all, and be personally responsible for all their actions, nor will they receive better medical, pension, holidays, sick leave or anything that the average person they work for do not have. Pay and benefits will be based on equal parity, to the taxpayers who work in the private sector, who pay the bill.

-- S Schantz (editor@lewisnews.com), November 22, 1999.

Do I understand you to say that the school superintendant, who manages a $70,000,000 budget and 800 employees, would be compensated like the average of all other private sector managers in the community with similar responsibilities? What if you can find none? What if the only other one gets profit sharing, and averages a million per year?

What happens in a community that has a depressed economy? The fishing industry and timber industry are examples of how that can happen. When the average for the community goes down, does that mean they can only hire the teachers, police officers, and fire fighters that can't get a job anywhere else? Or perhaps the wage will be so low they can't get anyone to apply - well, perhaps some registered sex offenders would teach in the elementary schools for minimum wage.

What about a community like Mercer Island, with a very high average income but few workers live on the island? Do those few workers set the wage for all the city workers? Management averages would be very high also, on Mercer Island. Few city employees can afford to live in the city now, so your proposal may increase their wages by 50 or 100%.

You didn't address many of my prior questions, and I have given you several more here. I still don't see how this could work. Apply it to specific situations; and explain how wages, benefits, etc. for different communities would be established, please. Consider all the government employees that would be needed, from the guy who mows the grass at the park, to the police and firefighters, to the police chief and the public works director, to the school superintendant and the city manager, to the city attorney and the municipal judge, etc. If you explore all the possible impacts on all the communities in the state, you may avoid making the same kind of drafting errors that occured in 695.

It still looks like a fire bomb to me.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), November 22, 1999.

PS:

What do you do about the existing labor agreements with public employees? Changes like this need to be negotiated with the unions, and this state has some strong pro-labor laws that would need to be repealed to make this possible. Some public employees have binding arbitration of labor issues, including wages and benefits, that can take the decision out of the hands of the community. Arbitration laws require that wages and benefits are set based on the the wages and benefits of similar communities in the state, or for large employers in the western states. Those laws would need to be changed. The state retirement system provides for a common program, that allows public employees to change employers as they become qualified for a promotion, and maintain the same retirement plan. Since this proposed initiative would require every community to taylor their employee benefits to the local average, all that would also need to be changed.

Perhaps you don't need to respond to my questions. I think I do understand your intent, and this (draft?) initiative IS idiotic.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), November 22, 1999.

I gotta agree with db. Your initiative (as written) makes no sense whatsoever. Without trying to be offensive, I mean this in the most literal way possible. I've read your posts and they're fundamentally incomprehensible.

-- Brad (knotwell@my-deja.com), November 22, 1999.

The question you raise stating all the difficulties we find ourselves in now, is the reason we need this.

We have let our people who are, or were meant to be our servants get out of hand. They are now the best paid with the most benefits and little responsibility.

That was not the way it was supposed to be.

We did not get better people by paying more money etc. We can no longer afford it. We were told we would attract better people if we paid more and the idea sounded good.

Like the example you state of a school Superintendent, where at one time is was considered an honor with very little pay. The students were educated the teachers were honored and highly respected in the community, even if not highly paid. They were dedicated teachers, and they loved what they were doing, it wasnt the money. They loved teaching and they were allowed to teach.

Like I say we will lose a lot of people but it will be the people who are in public service for the money etc. These types are free to find other employment in the private sector.

The public service should not have a union that can disrupt or dictate to the taxpayers.

The laws you talk about would be changed by the passage of this initiative.

I know this will cause a big disruption in peoples lives, but it will not be a harsh as it will be, if we continue paying for something we can no longer afford.

You call this an anarchist firebomb; this is the fire extinguisher for the bomb already set.

Do you have a better idea how to bring the public service under control? Or do you want to continue with a broken system.

We want ideas and suggestions to make this work with as little pain as possible. There will be pain, there is no other way left.

You know this has a good chance of getting the signatures required to get on the ballot. What do you think would happen if it were?

Do you think there is enough people upset enough to vote it in?

Ok now lets make a workable imitative that dont throw the baby out with the bath water. If that is still possible any more. We need ideas that work with the least damage. You can attack this if you want but that will not help. Its not going away.

I gotta agree with db. Your initiative (as written) makes no sense whatsoever. Without trying to be offensive, I mean this in the most literal way possible. I've read your posts and they're fundamentally incomprehensible.

I take no offence, and we are striving to make this comprehensible. This is not a finished product, its a rough draft submitted for comments and changes. Can we do this different? What wording needs changing?

-- S Schantz (editor@lewisnews.com), November 22, 1999.

S Schantz:

You are attempting to push a big rock up a steep hill. The only way to cut personnel costs in public employment significantly, is to change the nature of the employment relationship in Washington. This state is among the most pro-labor states in the union, and that goes for both public employment and private employers. When you attack the laws that provide protections to public employees, you get big labor involved to defend not just the public employees but the rights and privilages of collective bargaining and organized labor. If this were on the ballot next year, even cleaned up and better balanced, I believe it would get much less than 40% approval because of the implications for all workers.

If you really want suggestions, lose the concept of salary and benefits tied to the individual employer service area. That gets you into all kinds of inequities between different employers that all recruit from the same pool of job applicants. What could help is to limit the criteria that can be used by employers, unions, arbitrators, and the Public Employment Relations Commission when they certify what other employers are comparable. Perhaps you can make the most important criteria of comparability, the median income of the residents of a community. That way, local wages are not based on what communities that are much richer are able to pay.

Another suggestion, reduce the authority of the Public Employment Relations Commission, the Department of Labor and Industries, and arbiters. If they are no longer able to compel public employers to spend public money to implement their unilateral decisions, employees will have less incentive to file complaints and manipulate the regulatory system to their advantage.

Finally, you could consider mandating some consolidation in the number of small local governments that are doing the same thing in the same area. That could reduce the overhead, or improve the effectiveness for the area. This one I am more concerned with, because a bigger organization often means the elected officials or less accessable, have less control of the public employees, and they can hide from the community and blame "the system" when things go wrong. Still, some small cities, special districts, and agency divisions are just too small to be effective. Fire departments with one or two fire stations are an example. Police departments with a Chief and a half dozen officers is another. A small water district surrounded by bigger neighbors, with inadequate storage or water supply is a third. Sometimes a small organization is all that is possible, but at other times it exists because no incentives or penalties exist that would compel anyone to make the effort to change it.

I don't think you will have much luck tinkering with this. None if you attempt it the way it was initially stated. If you propose to destroy what is, to get a quick fix, it won't sell with the majority of voters. A resonable proposal that reduces the power and protections enjoyed by labor, will work to curb excessive demands over time. If you make the big dramatic move, you will get the big dramatic reaction from labor groups; and in this state that is unlikely to be approved.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), November 22, 1999.

FIREBOMB! this still makes no sense. If what you're saying is that public employees cannot have any benefits that are not obtainable by the average citizen in the community they work for. They already get that. Every citizen has the opportunity to get a public job. the word is opportunity. they can get the proper education and fill out the application just like everyone else who is a public employee.

As far as salaries go, are you talking about earning a maximum of the average of the non-public employee working community? That would create a tremendous disparity across the state. what about depressed communities in Okanogan county that makes an average of $6/hr and no benefits. That county will have no qualified public employee working for them. Everyone will work for Redmond with the average salary much higher than what most state employees currently make.

If your goal is to privatize everything, what happens when there becomes middlemen and the prices get driven up. Who keeps these private companies in check?

And if you think this initiative has a snowballs chance in hell, you are wasting our time. With all public employees including the courts and attorneys trying or defending this taking a potentially huge pay cut, you'll never get this through.

One more thing. this does nothing to stop corruption at the federal level. Senator gorton, lobyists, etc. will still be there bribing our electeds. and our electeds will be that much easier to buy off because they make nothing.

-- theman (theman@wuzzup.com), November 22, 1999.

dbvz You are attempting to push a big rock up a steep hill. The only way to cut personnel costs in public employment significantly, is to change the nature of the employment relationship in Washington.

I would like to thank you for some concrete ideas and advice; we will be using some of these in the next rough draft.

We have a start and are building with it. As for being impossible, everything is if you dont try.

We have nothing to loose and everything to gain.

http://www.lewisnews.com/

-- S Schantz (editor@lewisnews.com), November 22, 1999.

Change the laws that essentially prohibit contracting out government services

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), November 23, 1999.

Initiative to tie all pay, benefits, privileges and legal accountability, immunities & responsibilities of those receiving any moneys derived from any tax to not exceed the average income, benefits, privileges or legal accountability, immunities & responsibilities enjoyed & obtainable by the people they serve.

Now this is one initiative that would harm the unintended. Your dealing with too many generalities. As I see it, it seems a lazy way to try and deal with pay and compensation issues that should be dealt with on a case by case or more local basis. Getting our Government under control is going to be hard work. There just is no easy solution. Your initiative idea is one that I believe people would only support in theory, because of tendancy to use sarcasm in dealing with this topic. The reality is that it would fail to garner the needed votes to pass based on the fact that it is too radical for most of us.

I think we can do a better job by making Washington a Right to work state, Changing privitization laws, and perhaps an initiative to cover high Government salaries with a pay freeze.

-- Marsha (acorn_nut@hotmail.com), November 23, 1999.

dbvz--"You are attempting to push a big rock up a steep hill. The only way to cut personnel costs in public employment significantly, is to change the nature of the employment relationship in Washington. This state is among the most pro-labor states in the union, and that goes for both public employment and private employers. When you attack the laws that provide protections to public employees, you get big labor involved to defend not just the public employees but the rights and privilages of collective bargaining and organized labor. If this were on the ballot next year, even cleaned up and better balanced, I believe it would get much less than 40% approval because of the implications for all workers."

I read this paragraph with interest because it addresses (tangentially) something I've been thinking a bit about lately.

Why do government employees need to unionize? AFAICT, they have decent wages and enjoy generous benefits packages. Similarly, they have fairly reasonable working conditions and are absolutely insulated from competitive issues. Furthermore, they work in an environment without a profit motive, as a result, there is no dramatic incentive for manager's at government agencies to exploit their workers.

When AFSCME (or ATU or IFPTE. . .etc) is working to organize a new agency, who gets cited as the public equivalent of the oft-cited, infamous "greedy businessman?" Put another way, what problems are government unions trying to solve?

======================my speculations below========================

1) Since public employees' raises and benefits come from governments, the only way to effectively influence these upward is via organized lobbying of elected officials.

Personally, I find this mushy because it ignores the fact that government agencies compete against the private sector for employees. As a result, I don't find this a compelling reason.

2) The declining influence of unions in the private sector (assumption: declining influence --> declining dues payments) makes them more aggressive in organizing the public sector (presumption: it's easier to organize metro bus drivers than it is to organize greyhound bus drivers). IOW, public sector unions exist and flourish because *they can* not because of actual need.

As I write this, I wonder if expanded public sector employment indirectly subsidizes (via union dues paid by public sector salaries) labor activity in the private sector.

-- Brad (knotwell@my-deja.com), November 23, 1999.

Brad:

I understand that public sector union membership is increasing, while private sector union membership is declining. I can't confirm that, or give a specific number, but it fits with your comments.

Union dues are used for political action, but they become private funds when earned, so it is not PDC issue.

Reasons for public sector unions include the fact that they want to influence management decisions about wages, HOURS, and WORKING CONDITIONS. A big part of it is the tension between what is preferred by the staff, and what is of most benefit to the community.

Under the current Public Employment Relations Commission regulations, most public sector jobs only compare to other public sector jobs. As a result, they can get out of contact with similar private sector jobs. Some communities attempt a salary analysis that uses equivalent private sector positions as comparables, and some public positions are paid over the average and some are under. The biggest difference is that in public employment, even the lowest paid positions usually get a good benefit package unless it is a part-time position.

This idea of public sector management by initiative is dangerous. 695 has some poorly written provisions, and unintended consequences; and if that becomes the way public decisions are proposed and adopted, we will spend a lot of time fixing the problems these initiatives will create. The legislature meets in January, and proposals like this should go through the committee hearing process and the analysis that a bill would require. That would provide the opportunity for all parties to comment, and all the consequences found.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), November 23, 1999.

To have the legislative do any of the necessary changes needed is hopeless.

We have to force them to do what should have been done years ago when this problem was starting.

It would be easer to pass this initiative than have our legislators get serious about this.

I know this is a sledgehammer when we should be looking at the problem on a case by case basis, but this will not happen in any event. Even if they had the courage to attempt it, we would not see any changes in our lifetime. We all know they would study this to death.

We need something to force their hand, do what is needed.

An Imitative like the proposed one may do that. We need to give them the choice either they fix it, or we will, through the initiative possess.

There have been some good suggestions and we will be incorporating them in the next draft. Thank all of you. We do pay attention to these suggestions and will try and do the least harm to the innocent http://www.lewisnews.com/

-- S Schantz (editor@lewisnews.com), November 23, 1999.

Please get better advice on the language, than those who wrote 695 had.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), November 23, 1999.

db--"Union dues are used for political action, but they become private funds when earned, so it is not PDC issue."

I understand this answer, unfortunately, I probably wasn't clear what I meant by subsidy (not quite the right word). In general, the ease of organizing government employees combined with declining union membership in the private sector makes it reasonable to think the best way to support unions (if one has that goal) is to add as many public sectors employees as can plausibly justified. From my perspective, this is especially insidious given labor's generally monolithic political views (in a roundabout way, this is why I used the term subsidy).

Put simplistically, if the Teamsters are losing members, they have less money to influence political campaigns. However, if you increase public hiring and correspondingly, increase the number of members in AFSCME, AFSCME will have more money for political campaigns. In the long run, if your a liberal politician, you probably consider this a side benefit of increasing public sector employment.

"Reasons for public sector unions include the fact that they want to influence management decisions about wages, HOURS, and WORKING CONDITIONS. A big part of it is the tension between what is preferred by the staff, and what is of most benefit to the community."

Pardon the caricature, but I think you just said that public sector unions exist to prevent management from providing services in a way most beneficial to the "customer."

Seriously, the above presumes that balancing of interests wouldn't occur without public sector unions. Personally, I don't find that to be a reasonable assumption.

"Under the current Public Employment Relations Commission regulations, most public sector jobs only compare to other public sector jobs. As a result, they can get out of contact with similar private sector jobs. Some communities attempt a salary analysis that uses equivalent private sector positions as comparables, and some public positions are paid over the average and some are under. The biggest difference is that in public employment, even the lowest paid positions usually get a good benefit package unless it is a part-time position."

If anything, this statement supports my assertion that public sector unions are a solution in search of a problem. If public sector workers have generally better benefits (FWIW, I believe to be true as well), it points to less of a need for unionism (in the public sector) than more.

My key assumption: the private sector is not "under unionized." It probably depends on your perspective whether or not this assumption is reasonable.

-- Brad (knotwell@my-deja.com), November 24, 1999.

Brad wrote, "Pardon the caricature, but I think you just said that public sector unions exist to prevent management from providing services in a way most beneficial to the "customer."

Yes, that is what I meant. We seem to agree on most of these points. Wages and benefits are good, and many of the real battles are about control. Under the current system, public sector managers and the elected officials have reduced control of the work force. The workers believe they need the unions to protect them from that control. Some "adjustment" in the relationship may be needed.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), November 24, 1999.

D, When "son of 695" passes, it will "adjust" the attitude of our elected officials. Your posts suggest you are worried about this new initiative. You should be....

-- Rolex Hoffmann (rolex@innw.net), November 27, 1999.

Rolex:

I am worried that this method of public decision making, will become more common and create many more problems for OUR state and local governments. We should make some distinctions about what proposed initiative we are talking about.

The Son of 695 I believe you mean, the roll back of tax and fee increases and the freeze of property values, has some potential problems with constitutionality that need to be carefully evaluated - addressed in another post. I believe 695 has some good ideas; but it was poorly written, bad law, and an improper use of the initiative process. "Son" is more of the same, but goes farther. The worst provision, concerning property taxes, is very likely to be found unconstitutional as I noted in another thread.

My comments on this thread were about another proposal, that seemed to me to be unworkable as originally stated. Instead of restricting tax revenues, it would actually get into personnel compensation decisions of local governments. I continue to believe that such a proposal would be rejected, and that it is another example the initiative process being misused. Perhaps this is "Daughter of 695."

My greatest concern was, from the beginning, the damage that would be done to representative government. I do not believe direct democracy is a good idea, and some of the recent initiative proposals just confirm that position. The legislature has the opportunity to amend and refine ideas presented to it, and still only about 10% of the bills ever become law. Be worst ideas get rejected. If the initiative process is used, voters only get a yes or no vote. 695 has demonstrated that some of the worst ideas will still be approved. If this continues, the job of the legislature will be to clean up the mess created by initiatives, and the operation of state and local government will become chaotic. Yes, that has me worried.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), November 27, 1999.

"My greatest concern was, from the beginning, the damage that would be done to representative government. I do not believe direct democracy is a good idea, and some of the recent initiative proposals just confirm that position."

d-

I share many of your concerns, but also am concerned that REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY seems to be having problems too. At a minimum, I believe, the success of I-695 indicates a disconnect between what the people want and what the elected representatives are delivering. Some may be able to comfort themselves with the notion that a majority of our voters were either ill informed, suckered, or sold out due to greed (if you find any of THOSE prospects comforting), but I think it represents a growing alienation of elected representatives from the populace. They increasingly live in a world of lobbyists and special interest groups and, like the "inside the beltway mentality" in DC, are fast developing their own jargon and subculture. Unless the average voters can somehow be heard over the people who live on the resources of the process of government (lobbyists, career bureaucrats, other politicians, etc.), I think you will see more and more populism, oftentimes with clumsy and poorly crafted tools. How do we change the bureaucracy in any other way? Or don't you think it needs changing?

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), November 28, 1999.

Craig:

I suggest that if voters put as much effort into electing candidates as they put into the 695 effort, those elected WOULD be responsive. A combination of campaign spending limits, contribution limits, and term limits, could also help. We are actually relatively fortunate in this state to have a part-time legislature; that spends most of the year in their district, most often working for a living.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), November 30, 1999.