This week marked the end of what proved to be a whirlwind (albeit abbreviated) legislative session in Olympia. Over the course of just sixty working days, our lawmakers pinballed between a diversity of policy fights, from a statewide rent control, which was ill-advised and soundly defeated, to a raucous struggle (involving some good ol’ fashioned vox populi rallies on the Capitol steps) over even discussing six ballot initiatives that have been certified for the November election. Ultimately—and fortunately, given the constitutional directive that ballot initiatives take legislative “precedence” over all lawmaking matters beyond appropriations bills—lawmakers agreed to debate three of the six. All three have since passed, which Small miracles, we suppose. As for the ballot measures the Legislature declined to hear, however, two legislators offered the remarkably anti-democratic rationale that “[t]he three initiatives we are not taking on would have a dire effect on the day to day lives of every single Washingtonian,” and thus, (il)logically cannot be left to the people to decide. Fortunately, Washington’s Constitution gives the people their own bite at the apple after their representatives fail, well, to represent them by foregoing any open debate on certified ballot initiatives.
The sentiments described above are not new to Western politics. Call it “technocracy” or the “nanny state” or even “Big Brother”—since Plato first wrote of philosopher-kings in his Republic (c. 375 BC), our alleged social betters (their cocktail-hour terminology, not mine) have for millennia sought (mostly successfully, sadly) to keep most policy choices and decisionmaking powers out of popular hands. As one Soviet official “chillingly” put it in urging official silence in the immediate aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986: “We seal off the city. No one leaves. And cut the phone lines. Contain the spread of misinformation. That is how we keep the people from undermining the fruits of their own labor.” English King John’s reluctant assent to his noblemen’s Magna Carta in 1215 set the West on a path towards truly representative government, though it proved to be a long and winding road that has not quite ended and likely never will. The twentieth century offered humanity almost countless stark reminders that freedom is not a ratchet but rather something that must be vigilantly and endlessly nurtured.
Now obviously politicians choosing to ignore a few state ballot initiative pales in comparison to last century’s left- and right-wing fascist predations (to be clear: it’s not remotely close), or even to some of the still mild but marginally more grievous political machinations that have transpired in this highly polarized era of ours. But in view of the vigilance freedom demands, it is worthwhile to sound alarms early and often. While many of us small-r republicans chronically vacillate between fears of crying wolf and lamenting, post hoc, that evil prevailed because good men did nothing, nefarious forces bent on power for power’s sake forever shadow the body politic. But no one ever secured or upheld their liberties through chronic indecision.
It is in this spirit that we at Courts & Committees expended a great deal of virtual ink (close to the least we can do) over the last two months waxing philosophical (some might say pedantical) on the merits of direct democracy within a broader constitutional order, and the general failure of modern political processes to ensure the degrees of transparency and accountability long-term representative democracy requires. Granted, politics is a far freer enterprise now than it was in, say, 1924. Exactly a century ago, Joseph Stalin ruled the Soviet Union, Mussolini dominated Italy, and behind bars Hitler and his Nazi thugs planned their next move after the prior year’s failed “Beer Hall Putsch.” Today, outside of the opinion sections of the Washington Post or New York Times, the greatest danger lurking behind the curtains of American democratic republicanism is probably simmering doubts on election integrity—some plausible, others downright insane, if we may be so bold—and fears that the current octogenarian president will beat a septuagenarian ex-president to the White House, or vice versa. Perhaps with one in-the-ballpark exception (we expect our readers have an idea of the fairly recent imbroglio to which we are referring), the stakes in modern American politics are not close to reaching the levels of violence or degradation that befell Europe in the 1930s or the United States in the long leadup to the Civil War, for that matter.
Indeed, while this year’s truncated legislative session recalled some of the darker forces still at play in American politics, it also offered glaring reminders of what is perennially good and decent in the American style of governance. Tinges of elitism and intramural political class solidarity (and the occasional mass descent upon the U.S. Capitol) aside, from what I saw in Olympia this winter, and in a previous life as an aide on Capitol Hill, our politics still treasure transparency, accountability, and individual freedom as baselines from which parties, politicians, and, yes, even the people will occasionally depart. Perhaps the best national example of this abiding focus is the fact that despite decades of integration into (instead of staying above) the political scene, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions remain as binding as ever, with one side or the other decrying the justices’ “politicization” at the expense of proper constitutional interpretation but ultimately licking their wounds and moving on. Efforts to “pack the Court” have repeatedly died and do not appear close to being reached.
The best example of this in the Evergreen was on stark display throughout the session, in the open and honest discourse our Legislature did permit, on the floor and in committee rooms—discussions that defeated some truly poor policy options (e.g., statewide rent control) while hoisting some good ones that otherwise never stood a chance (e.g., requiring legislative approval of the attorney general’s formula for disbursing settlement funds). Politicos often critique federal congressional leaders for failing to bring proposed bills to committee hearings or floor discussions, let alone an at-large vote. While some other lawmakers do share some legislators’ apparent antidemocratic reflex, thankfully they represent the exception instead of the rule.
No matter where a member of the public stands on a given proposal, Washington officeholders will almost invariably give them a fair shake. It’s a featured design of our state’s constitutional order. Most states do not permit the degree of popular access to legislative combat that us Washingtonians enjoy. It is a blessing but also a constant responsibility. Protecting direct and representative democracies from those that champion fascism—or even mere elitism—is a full time job. As liberty-minded lawyers, we at Citizen Action Defense Fund do our modest part—fighting against bad policies and litigating against governmental overreach. We also write this blog! Washingtonians across the state do theirs whenever they vote, but also every time they take it upon themselves actively to support or oppose proposed bills. We hope they continue this practice until the sun burns out and our beautiful state becomes a mere swath of a cool, dying husk of an Earth. Politicians must do their part, too. First and foremost by continually instantiating Washington’s political culture of transparency and personal liberty—at least more so than many other states, especially on the West Coast. This year’s legislative session featured both the good and bad in modern American politics. On balance, the good won. Not because it was destined to but because we the people (and our representatives) consciously made sure of it. We will have another chance this November, when the other three initiatives—invisible to some lawmakers—are on the ballot. Not soon after we will have another legislative session. We will cover that one as indefatigably as we have tried to this year’s. In the meantime, and at all times, it is up to you to ensure that our politicians hew close to those baselines of transparency and accountability that keep this state—and nation—(relatively) free.
Alki,
Sam Spiegelman