Our Voice: Lawmakers should act on supermajority amendment

Washington voters have supported measures that require a legislative, two-thirds supermajority vote on state tax increases six times since 1993, but lawmakers have yet to change the system.

There is a slight possibility it could happen this session, but only if those legislators typically opposed to the concept reconsider their stance.

We think they should.

On Thursday, a proposed constitutional amendment to make the supermajority switch made it out of the state Senate Government Operations and Security Committee, and now can be scheduled for a hearing on the Senate floor.

For those who keep a close eye on Olympia alliances, this was not a complete surprise. The prime sponsor of the proposal is Sen. Pam Roach, R-Sumner, who is the committee’s chairwoman and a supporter of political activist Tim Eyman.

Eyman was the driver behind Initiative 1366, which was approved by voters in November but was struck down as unconstitutional by a King County judge last month. The state Supreme Court said it would hear the appeal on March 15, which is after the legislative session is scheduled to be over.

I-1366 was a sly, desperate attempt to coerce the Legislature into putting a supermajority vote requirement on the ballot. If lawmakers didn’t, the initiative said, then the state sales tax would be cut a penny from the current 6.5 cents per dollar spent. State analysts predicted that would cut $8 billion over the next six years and decimate the state budget.

Fortunately, this extortion attempt has failed so far. But although the Superior Court ruling took the pressure off the Legislature for now, Eyman said he is already planning another initiative attempt if lawmakers fail to act.

We don’t like Eyman’s bullying methods, but we also don’t like lawmakers continually dismissing voters.

A statewide poll commissioned just before the session by the Washington Policy Center showed that if I-1366 was thrown out by the courts, 65 percent of the state’s voters were still in favor of legislators putting a constitutional amendment on the ballot requiring the two-thirds vote for state tax increases. The poll reflects a similar sentiment voters have shown over the years in support of Eyman's initiatives.

Time and again, however, lawmakers have failed to listen.

There was a recent effort in the House to allow that chamber’s constitutional amendment on the two-thirds requirement to leap-frog over the committee hearing and head straight to a floor vote. But that idea was defeated and it was referred to the House Finance Committee. How it will fare there remains to be seen.

Ironically, a constitutional amendment takes a supermajority in the House and the Senate, and so far it appears most Democrats oppose the idea, while Republicans tend to favor it.

So chances are, the Legislature will not act this session, which is unfortunate.

Lawmakers would be better off giving voters what they want right now, instead of giving Eyman another chance to try and figure out how to bypass the system.

This story was originally published February 1, 2016 at 5:24 PM with the headline "Our Voice: Lawmakers should act on supermajority amendment."