Thurston County, Washington

November 7, 2006

1 .  STATE MEASURES

PROPOSED BY INITIATIVE PETITION

1A. 

Initiative Measure No. 920

Initiative Measure No. 920 concerns estate tax. This measure would repeal Washington’s state laws imposing tax, currently dedicated for the education legacy trust fund, on transfers of estates of persons dying on or after the effective date of this measure.

Should this measure be enacted into law?

      Yes

      No 

Initiative No. 920

Vote NO

Conservatives have been bitching about the estate tax (or Republican-christened "death tax") on a national level at a relatively constant rate for the last dozen years. Now it's Washington's turn. The Washington estate tax is the levy that falls on the crustiest of the upper crust's estates—those valued at over $2 million, or $4 million if you're married—when they're inherited by someone else, such as those cherubic, Chanel-clad children. To protect small farmers from getting hit by the tax, the law exempts farm and timberland that takes up at least 50 percent of someone's property from counting toward the value of their estate.

Many wealthy families duck the tax altogether by putting the majority of their money into charities and nonprofit foundations. Because of these sorts of loopholes, large enough for Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen to jump through (his paper donated money to the campaign), only 250 Washington families are burdened by the tax annually. The initiative only got on the ballot thanks to the tireless efforts of skeezy paid petition gatherers, whom The Stranger caught lying to voters about the estate tax in order to snag the required number of signatures back in June.

Those 250 families, though, have a lot of power: Rapacious megadeveloper Martin Selig and John Nordstrom bankrolled I-920 to the tune of a combined $875,000. If you're against the estate tax because you don't exact an ounce or two of spiteful glee from taxing the richy rich, you should think of the children. The $100 million raised annually through the estate tax goes into the cute little coffers of the Washington Education Legacy Trust. The reluctant sacrifice of those 250 families provides Washington colleges with funds to enroll 7,900 more students and decreases class sizes in K–12 schools statewide. Vote no.

1B. 

Initiative Measure No. 933

Initiative Measure No. 933 concerns government regulation of private property. This measure would require compensation when government regulation damages the use or value of private property, would forbid regulations that prohibit existing legal uses of private property, and would provide exceptions or payments.

Should this measure be enacted into law?

      Yes

      No 

Initiative No. 933

Vote NO

Gravel mine in your backyard, anyone?

Billed as a "property-rights" initiative, I-933 goes further than any similar law nationwide to strip away land-use laws, zoning, and environmental protections. It will have disastrous impacts for the economy, the environment, and rural farmland.

I-933 uses a so-called "pay-or-waive" system: Any time a government regulation reduces a property owner's potential profits, taxpayers must pay for the property owner's "lost" property. If taxpayers can't afford to pay, the government must waive the law. Zoning, for all intents and purposes, will go away. If I-933 passes, you can build a gravel mine in your neighbors' backyard, subdivide your rural farmland for exurban McMansions, pollute a salmon-bearing stream, violate any number of environmental laws, and so on. There are no exceptions for nuisances (like sex-offender housing) or developments that endanger public health or safety (like a suburban development over a protected source of groundwater), unless the threat is "immediate."

Land-use laws are not arbitrary. In many cases, they protect residents and businesses from environmental hazards, unwanted uses (that gravel mine), overdevelopment (subdivisions in rural farmland), and public nuisances. Rural farm owners, the very group I-933 supporters claim to want to protect, would actually be one of the groups most impacted by I-933, which would effectively do away with growth-management boundaries that currently keep rural farmland rural. That's one reason they've lined up to support the opposition campaign—and why the only "farm" group supporting I-933 is the Farm Bureau, an insurance company.

I-933 could invalidate scores of existing and future laws, among them the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Growth Management Act. And because its effects are retroactive to 1996, it's possible under I-933 to move onto a piece of land that has been regulated for 10 years and demand compensation for following the law. And it affects personal as well as real property—everything from cars to water rights to kitchen appliances. That means that if the city placed limits on muffler noise, to use one oft-cited example, they might have to compensate you if the requirements diminished the value of your Harley.

The cost of all this new government bureaucracy and compensation is staggering: $7.5 billion to $8.5 billion. This initiative goes too far and costs too much. Vote no.

1C.

Initiative Measure No. 937

Initiative Measure No. 937 concerns energy resource use by certain electric utilities. This measure would require certain electric utilities with 25,000 or more customers to meet certain targets for energy conservation and use of renewable energy resources, as defined, including energy credits, or pay penalties.

Should this measure be enacted into law?

      Yes

      No 

Initiative 937
I-937 grew out of the failure of the state Legislature in recent years to pass legislation requiring utilities to add renewable energy resources to their energy supply portfolios.

What the initiative would do:
The initiative would require utilities serving more than 25,000 customers to increase renewable energy sources to 15 percent of their total supply by 2020. It also requires those same utilities to seek out all cost-effective energy conservation measures available to them. Utilities that fail to meet the standard would be subject to penalties in the amount of $50 for every megawatt-hour of shortfall.

Who supports it:
The initiative has the support of such groups as the American Lung Association of Washington, the League of Women Voters of Washington, Northwest Energy Coalition, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, the Washington Association of Churches, among others.

Who opposes it:
The initiative is opposed by the Association of Washington Business, the Western Pulp/Paper Workers Association, Mason County Public Utility District No. 3, the Columbia Snake River Irrigators Association, among others.

Main arguments for I-937:
Supporters say the initiative maps out an energy future that will support clean energy such as wind and solar power. Renewable energy doesn't pollute the environment, creates jobs and reduces dependence on foreign oil, supporters say.

By promoting conservation, the initiative will reduce the need to build costly new power plants.

Twenty states and the District of Columbia have similar renewable energy standards on the books. In Colorado, the first state to pass a ballot measure to require renewable energy, consumers saved $14 million in energy costs in the first two years.

Main arguments against I-937:
Opponents say the initiative could drive up annual energy costs in this state by $185 million to $370 million a year. For instance, the cost of wind power has increased in the past year and could go even higher, if Congress doesn't renew alternative energy subsidies set to expire next year.

Initiative 937 creates an artificial market place that will drive up the cost of renewable energy, opponents argue. Instead of relying on an initiative, the free marketplace should determine when it makes sense for a utility to invest in green energy.

Wind and solar power are also irregular sources of energy that may not produce when the utilities need the power, opponents say.

Contributions for:
As of Oct. 11, Washingtonians for Clean Energy had raised $1,385,062 and spent $905,878 as of Aug. 31. Top cash contributors included Jabez Blumenthal, $100,000; Horizon Wind Energy, $50,000; and Union of Concerned Scientists, $51,000.

Contributions against:
As of Oct. 11, No on 937 had raised $321,287.45 and spent $26,427.42 as of Aug. 31. Top cash contributors include Weyerhaeuser Co., $100,000; Avista Corp., $50,000; and Northwest Pulp and Paper, $50,000.

PROPOSED TO THE PEOPLE BY THE LEGISLATURE

AMENDMENT TO THE STATE CONSTITUTION

1C.

House Joint Resolution 4223

The legislature has proposed a constitutional amendment on increasing an exemption from the personal property tax. This amendment would authorize the legislature to increase the personal property tax exemption for taxable personal property owned by each “head of a family