PROOF IS IN the eye of the analyst.
Post-election, I’ve hosted the Republican Women of Clallam County, been a guest at a League of Women Voters luncheon, taken minutes for the Clallam County Republican precinct officers committee, emceed a Shelter Providers Network meeting and heard numerous individual views.
Everyone agrees the political process needs less nastiness (particularly from the opposition), more participation (especially by voters who support their causes and candidates) and for elected officials to heed the message the voters delivered in the Nov. 2 election.
There’s no agreement, however, on just what that message is.
For the fourth time, voters imposed a requirement for a supermajority to approve any tax increases.
On the same ballot, they re-elected most of the legislators who had overridden that requirement.
Voters rejected a state income tax and repealed “snack taxes” imposed by the 2010 Legislature.
On the same ballot, they re-elected the Democratic legislative majority that imposed the snack taxes, and whose state party endorsed the income tax.
Nevertheless, my Republican friends see a clear anti-tax message.
The message isn’t so clear to University of Washington senior lecturer Nancy Amidei, who spoke to the League of Women Voters Nov. 13 at SunLand Golf and Country Club.
The income tax was rejected by 64.21 percent, the supermajority passed by 63.8 percent and the snack taxes were repealed by 60.5 percent of those voting.
Amidei extrapolated those figures to show that anti-tax voters made up only 41 percent to 43 percent of all eligible voters.
That’s not a landslide or a stunning victory, she said, sounding as if she believes nonvoters are overwhelmingly pro-tax.
Congressional and legislative campaigns decided by much narrower margins invite losing candidates and their supporters to question how much of a mandate the winners received.
Blaming non participants for election outcomes is a bit of a stretch this year.
Statewide, voter turnout was 70.55 percent, 74.38 percent in Clallam County and an astounding 81.29 percent in Jefferson County — the best in the state.
Amidei went on to fault the initiative process, which doesn’t require voters to sit through hours of hearings, read staff reports and examine budget impacts before voting.
Ballot issues are decided “not on the will of the people, but on the whim of the people,” she said.
Initiatives and referenda do not follow the law making process established by the U.S. Constitution and are not allowed at the federal level.
“We’ve got to get back to teaching civics,” said Amidei.
Civics — the study of how our government is supposed to function — is not required for high school graduation or addressed by Washington Assessment of Student Learning tests, she noted.
Even among politically active people, many do not understand the law making process, the roles of various elected officials or the different levels of government.
“Without understanding of the process, voters are much more easily swayed . . . deceived . . . frightened,” Amidei said.
In table conversation earlier, I noted that the United States was founded as a republic, not a democracy.
“Yes, but it’s not anymore,” responded Amidei, whose topic was “Reclaiming Democracy,” not reclaiming the Republic of the United States of America.
(Another contrast there — every Republican meeting opens with the Pledge of Allegiance, but the non partisan League of Women Voters’ agenda included neither pledge nor national anthem.)
Instead, Amidei offered encouraging words for further democratization.
Citing Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and a long list of other social programs, she said they were “brought by both Democrats and Republicans” and “passed during bad budget times.”
Economic down times present opportunities to increase government involvement in social services, because “people rise to a challenge,” she said.
Optimism for growing government isn’t widely shared among my social service contacts.
The Shelter Providers Network discussed greater collaboration, efficiency and efficacy to wring the most good from every increasingly scarce dollar.
Perhaps the best political insight was voiced by a private citizen who came to the network meeting as a first-time visitor, after reading about it in the Peninsula Daily News.
“The trend for government to take care of everything is ending,” she said.
“Now the trend is for the community to take care.”
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Martha Ireland was a Clallam County commissioner from 1996 through 1999.
She is on the administrative staff of Serenity of House of Clallam County, co-owns a Carlsborg-area farm with her husband, Dale, and is active in the local Republican Party, among other community endeavors.
Her column appears every Friday.
E-mail: irelands@olypen.com.
