Senate Bill 5082 would do away with the non-binding measures meant to gauge voter opinion on tax increases passed by the Legislature

Brett Davis
The Center Square Washington

A bill that would eliminate advisory votes from the ballot in Washington state is another step closer to becoming law after having been passed by the House of Representatives.

Senate Bill 5082, which passed the House Friday on a 54-43 vote, would do away with the non-binding measures meant to gauge voter opinion on tax increases passed by the Legislature.

The bill would require the creation of a public website with summaries of operating, capital, and transportation budgets; graphs of state budgeted expenditures by object for the most recent biennium; and charts detailing local and state expenditures.

SB 5082 passed the Senate in February and now goes to Gov. Jay Inslee’s desk for his signature.

“Advisory votes are non-binding referendums that do not carry any legal weight,” Sen. Patty Kuderer, D-Bellevue, the bill’s sponsor, said in a news release. “They have no real impact on policy making. These votes only pollute our ballots with anti-tax propaganda specifically designed to instill distrust in government – and they do it on our most fundamental sanctuary of democracy, the ballot.”

Advisory votes made their way onto Washington state ballots after voters approved Initiative 960 – courtesy of anti-tax activist Tim Eyman – in 2007. The initiative requires any tax increase proposed in the Legislature be passed with a two-thirds majority in both chambers, among other provisions.

A state Supreme Court ruling later gutted I-960 with the exception of two provisions still codified in state law today. One requires the state to hold advisory votes on all tax increases not approved by voters. The other requires the state to make public how each member of the Legislature voted on a bill that increases taxes or fees.

Paul Guppy, vice president for research at the free-market Washington Policy Center think tank, lamented the passage of SB 5082.

“Apparently Democrats don’t want to hear the public’s opinion about the tax increases they impose,” he told The Center Square via email. “Cancelling the advisory votes silences people’s voices and marginalizes the public’s legitimate concerns about the rising tax burden, especially in these tough economic times.  Working families are struggling, but they are basically saying to voters, ‘We don’t care what you think – we’re going to raise your taxes whether you like it or not’.” 

Eyman was also critical of the bill’s passage.

“House Democrats never looked worse trying SO HARD to justify taking away the People’s Right to Vote on Tax Increases (and to keep their future tax votes a secret, hide the taxes that will be increased, shroud how much those tax increases will cost the taxpayers, and rob the citizenry of the VOTER-DEMANDED right to express an OPINION on their insatiable tax appetite),” he said in a Monday morning email blast.

Andrew Villeneuve, founder and executive director of Northwest Progressive Institute, hailed the passage of SB 5082.

NPI has been working on the bill for five years with Kuderer, he said.

“Friday’s vote by the House of Representatives to pass SB 5082 is the culmination of years of work by a lot of people and organizations to remove a barrier to voting in Washington state,” Villeneuve said in an email. “The adoption of SB 5082 by both chambers of our Legislature is a huge win for voters and taxpayers that we’ll be celebrating for months and years to come.”

Advisory ballots are deceptive, he contends.

“In Washington, we believe that voting should be easy and that the ballot is sacred,” Villeneuve said. “It’s where we make the crucial decisions about who represents us and how we should govern ourselves. It is not an appropriate place for advertising, polling, or campaign-style messaging. In Washington, we also believe the people deserve truthful, accurate information about the decisions made by our elected representatives. Our bill makes it easier for them to get that information. It offers real transparency.”

This report was first published by The Center Square Washington.