Monthly Archive for Washington
Washington Stories Posted in November 2007
Roads-and-transit package too big and too pricey, voters feared
Category: Transportation · State: Washington · Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Voters rejected the roads-and-transit proposal on the Nov. 6 ballot because they feared the package was too big and too expensive -- even though they weren't clear about just how much it would cost, according to a post-election survey released Wednesday.
Constitution trumps initiatives, but will it always?
Category: Initiative and Referendum · State: Washington · Source: The News Tribune
The basics of the case were pretty straightforward. All nine justices of the state Supreme Court ruled last week that the Legislature acted legally in 2005 when it adopted a budget plan that exceeded spending limits contained in a 1993 citizen-passed initiative.
North Mason Considering Bond Ballot Measure to Build New Middle School
Category: Education · State: Washington · Source: Kitsap Sun
North Mason School District officials are considering presenting a bond to voters as early as May to build a new middle school, Superintendent Dave Peterson announced Tuesday.
Constitutional questions about 601 go unanswered
Category: Tim Eyman · State: Washington · Source: Seattle Times
The state Supreme Court agreed unanimously this morning to uphold increases in tobacco and alcohol taxes approved by the 2005 Legislature. But no substantive constitutional issues were settled. For the second time the court sidestepped the issue of whether the 1993 voter-approved Initiative 601 was constitutional. In 1994 the court declined to rule on a challenge to implementation of the law, saying the plaintiffs could not yet show any harm from the measure.
Opinion: A break for schools
Category: Education · State: Washington · Source: Seattle Times
The simple-majority ballot measure for school levies is ahead by a comfortable enough margin to break open the champagne. This ballot measure had a simple request: Allow school levy requests to pass by a 50 percent-plus-one voting majority rather than a 60 percent supermajority.
Simple majority looks like a winner
Category: Education · State: Washington · Source: The Seattle Times
The ballot measure that would allow school levies to pass with a majority vote pulled ahead for the first time Tuesday with a 7,000-vote lead.
Nickels wants new light rail vote next year
Category: Transportation · State: Washington · Source: Seattle Post-Inteligencer
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels says Sound Transit should rebound from Tuesday's drubbing at the polls and come back with a new light rail plan for voters on the 2008 ballot.
Opinion: The people didn't really speak, given the low turnout
Category: Initiative and Referendum · State: Washington · Source: Crosscut
Here's a bracing corrective from reader Patrick Higgins, arguing that "the people" didn't really speak, as we pundits like to say, since the large majority of voters stayed silent. Mr. Higgins, you have the microphone:
Ballot defeat puts lawmakers in spin over 520 Bridge
Category: Transportation · State: Washington · Source: Seattle Post-Inteligencer
The roads-and-transit ballot measure may be dead, but one of its star projects, a new Evergreen Point Bridge, has state officials scrambling to salvage the $4.4 billion needed for the project.
Taxes, Stem Cell Funding, School Vouchers Rebuffed in Ballot Measure Voting
Category: Taxes · State: New Jersey Oregon Utah Washington · Source: Congressional Quarterly
“Off-year” elections do not attract the large number of referendums and issue initiatives that are typically found on ballots in presidential and congressional election years. But Tuesday, the Election Day for most states holding 2007 contests, featured a handful of ballot propositions that had national implications. The following are analyses of the outcomes of four of these measures.
Proposition 1: Voters hit the brakes
Category: Taxes · State: Washington · Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Voters in the central Puget Sound counties were rejecting the biggest transportation tax proposal in state history, one designed to unite transit and highway advocates to improve regional traffic congestion.
Voters favor insurance bill, rainy-day fund; Eyman's anti-tax measure passing
Category: Taxes · State: Washington · Source: The Seattle Times
Despite a record-setting deluge of spending by the insurance industry, voters on Tuesday handily approved a measure that allows policyholders to sue for triple damages if an insurance company "unreasonably" denies a legitimate claim.
Initiatives: Insurance reform gets a big yes from voters
Category: Tim Eyman · State: Washington · Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The insurance industry's $11.5 million campaign to repeal new consumer protection legislation was defeated Tuesday night.
Huge roads-transit plan gets trounced
Category: Transportation · State: Washington · Source: The Seattle Times
Voters rejected a multibillion-dollar regional roads-and-transit package on Tuesday, likely leaving state lawmakers with a transportation mess that could take years to sort out.
Sequim library backers eager to try ballot measure for expansion
Category: Taxes · State: Washington · Source: Peninsula Daily News
This place is minuscule compared with some other Sequim structures - which is part of the reason why its Friends are raring to expand it.
WA voters favoring triple-damages insurance measure
Category: Insurance · State: Washington · Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer
A record-setting opposition campaign couldn't buy a lead on election night, leaving foes of Referendum 67 with fading hopes for a comeback as Washington's vote count continues.
Mass transit plan makes waves in Seattle ecotopia
Category: Transportation · State: Washington · Source: The Christian Science Monitor
Whether you're talking about its lush, rain-drenched lawns or its pro-earth policies, Seattle ranks among the greenest of American cities. But to experience the beauty of the Emerald City, a gas-guzzling, air-polluting car is pretty much the only way to see it.
'Off-year' ballot still generates issues, ads
Category: Initiative and Referendum · State: Washington · Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Old media -- including newspapers -- have been complaining about declining advertising revenue, but there is one recommendation that would answer many of the industry's financial challenges: round-the-clock issues campaigning.
Baerwaldt putting money where his mouth is in Prop. 1 debate
Category: Taxes · State: Washington · Source: The Seattle Times
Once an enthusiastic supporter of Seattle's monorail plan, Mark Baerwaldt is crusading again. But this time he's opposing Proposition 1, the roads-and-rails ballot measure.
Other Monthly Archives for Washington
- November 2007 (19)