Rob Lutz, president of the Evergreen Education Association in Vancouver, likened the measure to blackmail: “Do this, or suffer the consequences.” The measure gets the process essentially backward by putting a constitutional amendment in the hands of voters before state lawmakers, Lutz said.
As for the two-thirds requirement, such a threshold would basically allow 17 people — slightly more than one-third of the 49-member state Senate — to prevent any tax increase from happening, Lutz said, even if it benefits the state.
Past attempts to create a two-thirds threshold for raising taxes in the Legislature have been thwarted by court rulings or by lawmakers themselves. The most recent effort, another Eyman initiative that voters overwhelmingly approved in 2012, was declared unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court in 2013.
The initiative process allows citizens to do what the Legislature will not, Orcutt said. Despite five votes going back to the 1993, lawmakers still have not created a two-thirds majority requirement for raising taxes, he said.
“This is something that the citizens have embraced for 22 years,” Orcutt said.
Lutz noted that Washington is currently under immense pressure to fund education due to a state Supreme Court decision known as McCleary. Earlier this year, the court imposed daily fines to go along with a contempt order against lawmakers for failing to adequately fund education.
“We were in a different situation in the past,” Lutz said.
In Clark County, most ballots for the Nov. 3 election will be mailed out starting Oct. 16.