Taxpayers need changes to constitution for protection

Ironically, while objecting to the supermajority requirement for tax increases, Senator Brown sponsored Senate rules that require a supermajority vote to amend the budget on the floor.

This rule was used during the 2008 supplemental budget deliberations to block an attempt to remove $250,000 from the Senate budget to buy tickets for girls to attend Seattle Storm basketball games. The vote on the amendment to remove the funding secured a majority, 24-23, but it failed to pass since it did not receive the required 60 percent vote.

The Attorney General is defending the I-601 law against Senator Brown's challenge. The AG points out that in the 15 years since voters adopted I-601, "the Legislature has not chosen to repeal the statute or permanently amend its two-thirds vote provision, although it could have."

Senator Brown says I-601 violates the state Constitution by requiring a two-thirds vote to pass tax increases, when the constitution requires only a 50 percent majority vote to pass a law. The Attorney General rightly argues that the Constitution only says a bill has to receive a minimum vote of 50 percent to pass, and that the Legislature, or the people, can add to that requirement for some bills if they like. Obviously, the AG says, any bill that receives a two-thirds vote has already satisfied the constitutional requirement of getting 50 percent.

Regardless of what the court rules, the long term solution is for state officials to enact meaningful constitutional restrictions on tax and spending increases to help provide a restraint on excessive government spending and future tax increases. Under a statutory law like I-601, it has proven too easy for lawmakers to circumvent and ignore the spending limit.

What the people intended to be a firm but reasonable check on the growth of state spending and tax increases has been reduced almost to zero by the Legislature, as lawmakers seek to accommodate their desire for excessive spending. Today it is a meaningless safeguard that is bypassed regularly by lawmakers intent on boosting spending and taxes.

A model for the reforms that are needed was adopted by the voters last year, when voters amended the constitu-tion to create a budget reserve account, replacing the oft-raided Emergency Reserve Fund that was created by I-601.

Initiative 601 is better than nothing, and the court should uphold it, but only a constitutional tax and spending limit will help prioritize government spending and provide a legislative climate in which further increases in the government's financial burden are difficult to pass. Under such a restriction, if lawmakers felt they really needed to collect more money from people, tax increase proposals would need a two-thirds vote or could be submitted directly to voters for approval by referendum.

Jason Mercier is director of the Center for Government Reform at Washington Policy Center, a non-partisan public policy research organization in Seattle and Olympia. For more information contact WPC at 206-937-9691 or online at washingtonpolicy.org. You can email Jason at jmercier@washingtonpolicy.org.