Unlike the Princeton, NJ ballots, which consisted of voting for about 5 elected officials, my congressional district's Voters' Pamphlet, printed by the State of Washington, is not so much a pamphlet as a 135 page book. Seeing how poorly representative democracy worked out for the rest of the country, Washington has decided to be creative and give the power back to the people. Any citizen who can get a certain number of signatures can put whatever they want on our state's ballot. I have no idea how gullible the people of Washington are, but I know if I didn't bother reading through this enormous booklet last night, I might have read the title of the Reduce Traffic Congestion Initiative and been fatigued enough from voting for 87 other things that I might have not bothered reading the full text and pulled the wrong lever.
As far as I can tell, the proposition is a backlash to Sound Transit Proposition 1, a regional proposition to build commuter light rail like any sensible city should have. As an alternative, I-985 offers a patchwork of expensive traffic congestion solutions, which at best would have an almost indistinguishable effect on traffic, but will in many cases worsen congestion and will make mass transit useless during the final hour of morning and evening rush hour, which is precisely when I currently commute by mass transit (an awesome bike shuttle from the west side of the 520 bridge to Microsoft campus).
As a well-educated citizen with enough free time on my hands to read a 135 page Voters' Pamphlet and still feel uninformed enough to make a decision on the vast majority of propositions and amendments, I have confirmed my belief that direct democracy is scary. I'm perfectly happy to let corrupt politicians who are paid to do this for a living make these decisions for me. I guess I'm not in Kansas any more.
My favorite quotes on I-985:
- The Stranger, Seattle's alternative weekly newspaper, in a long but somewhat amusing endorsement summary for the entire Seattle ballot (worth reading as a supplement to this blog post provided you don't mind profanity): "There really isn't a single good thing you can say about the latest shit sandwich from Tim Eyman."'
- The Seattle Times (more conservative): "Within a few weeks of this measure's effective date, fewer commuters will ride the bus because they lose the time advantage. The result will be more cars on the roads and more congestion by mid-December. Happy Holidays to you."
- The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ("unabashedly liberal"): "Initiative 985 invites Washingtonians to encourage red-light running, make the streets more dangerous, demolish a good option on the financing of a new Highway 520 bridge and rob the state of the ability to provide for schools and other general fund responsibilities. [...] Voters should decline to join Eyman in blowing this multi-toxin poison dart at themselves."
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