Election Night Results

60 Replies to “Election Night Results”

1. Not transit related, but nevertheless….

   It appears that SnoCo will continue its push to make taxes in this county even more regressive as Prop 1 appears to be passing 54/46% as of this writing. This measure, which raises the sales and use tax rate by another .1% to fund a $75 million replacement of the county’s aging 911 equipment, could’ve all been avoided with proper planning and responsible fiscal management by county executives. But, that didn’t happen so they made an appeal to the council to bail them out and the council approved the ballot measure. It’s important to note that there is no sunset provision or stipulation as to how funds raised by the increased sales tax beyond the needed amount will be spent.

   This will make the sales tax in my area 10.4%, one of the highest in the state.

   >>Proposition Number 1 – Emergency Communication Systems and Facilities Sales and Use Tax
   Ballot Title

   The Snohomish County Council passed Ordinance No. 18-037 concerning an emergency communication systems and facilities sales and use tax. This proposition would authorize the imposition of a countywide sales and use tax, in addition to any other taxes authorized by law, of one tenth of one percent (0.1 % –10 cents for every $100) to be used for emergency communication systems and facilities, as authorized by RCW 82.14.420.<<

   1. I believe this will raise the sales and use tax rate for the Mill Creek area to be the highest in the state at 10.5%.

2. Personally, quite a mixed bag. City council of Portland has gone all Social Democrats. This sucks if you own a house there but need to rent it out on occasion, ie, new tenant laws by these guys are ridiculous..

   Glad to see 1631 fail. King County has to realize it can’t always impose its will on the rest of the state. I think Inslee, Gates and the planet would be better served by sending a billion dollars to any Latin American city and putting an electric car charging network in and then replacing the entire Taxi fleet with electric cars. This would do a hell of a lot more for the environment then 1631 would ever do.

   Glad to see California’s Prop 6 fail and Democrats retain control. High Speed Rail should now make it to completion and the electric car industry should continue to thrive. In California it sucks to be a farmer, but when you’re a state that has population centers the size of LA, SJ, SD and SF you’re basically screwed.

   My next door neighbor,Beto O’rourke,lost to Ted Cruz. This would have been a hell of a block party if he had pulled it off. Willie Nelson may have even shown up.

   And finally a much needed check on Trump. I just hope the Democrats have the fortitude to do the Republican thing and put him through political hell. After all the years of Monica, Bengazi, email servers and etc just maybe the Democrats can stomach a protracted political assassination.

   1. What we need more than a political assassination is good governance, a return to Congress doing its job, which includes checks and balances on the president and investigating high crimes and misdemeanors.

      Maybe those Social Democrats will build more housing. Have they said anything about zoning?

      The comment about supporting clean energy in Latin America (and Africa and Asia) has some merit.

      1. To figure on the 1631 part, no the comment doesn’t have any merit. Dollars certainly go farther in Latin America in general but the point is that we have a responsibility to manage our energy system.

         Like the New York times said, this was the most well developed plan to do that in the United States today. This isn’t overreach or a city imposing it’s will on rural areas, it was an acknowledgement that in the absence of federal leadership, Washington state has an urgent responsibility to reduce pollution. Unfortunately, oil companies staved this off and will continue to rule out energy system decisions for the time being. But let it be perfectly clear, corporate energy interests are “managing” our energy system right now. They bought this victory for $33 million. That is the over reach we should all be concerned about.

      2. It has merit because there are two concerns. One, we should clean up our own house as you said. Two, we need to stop the increase in global emissions however we can. We’re hindered in cleaning up our own house by the percent of Americans who think climate change is not man-made or don’t want to give up their driving and their 2000 sq ft houses or are gullible to manipulation by right-wing conspiracy media. But in Latin America and developing countries I think the hinderance is difference: not as much right wing conspiracies but more unable to afford the transition and a desire for a first-world lifestyle. So if we can help them afford the transition and get to a more first-world lifestyle in a sustainable way, then that would have a significant benefit to the planet. The transition is already happening as the price of clean energy solutions reaches parity with dirty energy technologies but it’s still worth accelerating this. And eventually our country will come round as more people realize the obstruction is absurd and counterproductive, as the 20th century “American Dream” nostalgists die, and as we get voter suppression under countrol.

   2. Economists agree that a carbon tax would be one of the most effective tools to significantly reduce carbon emissions:

      https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/jan/04/consensus-of-economists-cut-carbon-pollution

      http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/carbon-tax

      So, no, electric cars won’t be that effective compared to a carbon tax.

   3. The survival of the human species is at stake with climate change. That people can’t be bothered to do even the absolute minimum thing about it is pretty galling.

      We basically had an election where people chose between slightly higher gas prices and mass suicide, and they chose suicide.

      We have forest fires every year now. Hypoxic events off the coast and mass death of sea life. The entire coral reef system is going extinct. In a few years maybe the enormity of what is happening will finally register with people, but it will be too late. This isn’t some distant threat that we have time to deal with anymore. 2040 isn’t that far away.

      1. 1631 would have reduced global emissions by just 1/100th of 1%.

         Question: Why don’t people, when crafting a retirement savings plan for themselves, set-aside 1/100th of 1% of their income to invest? “Because, Sam, if they chose that low of an amount, at the end of their of their working career, they would have saved almost nothing! 1/100th of 1% is essentially zero!”

         Your words, not mine.

      2. Sadly, many of the No arguments were of the Sam variety. We can’t fix it completely, so even try to make a difference?

         The Tragedy of the Commons was not part of Sam’s multilingual grade school curriculum.

      3. Brent, it’s a cost/benefit thing. If there was a $1 Billion dollar King County property tax levy on the ballot to add 5 beds at a downtown homeless shelter, I’d vote no on that, too, but not because I’m anti-homeless.

      4. Sam, the cost benefit is that there are hundreds of millions of lives in the balance on the low end, and in the near term (next 10/20 years). We’re talking about at minimum the worst disaster in the history of the human race, that in the long run may well lead to its extinction. Something far worse than the devastation that happened during world war II, which in comparison only killed 80 million people.

         On the other side, slightly higher gas taxes that probably no one will notice.

         There is no “free” solution. It also isn’t free to ignore the problem. The cost of ignoring the problem is phenomenally high.

      5. But 1631-like taxes if done in all 50 states would add up to a significant part of the 15% of emissions that the U.S is responsible for directly. If 1631 had passed, that would encourage other states to pass similar laws. It’s like if you get a million pennies together- each penny is individually useless, but gradually building them up over time means you have $100,000.

      6. It’s not clear at this point why it failed. It will take time to disentangle the factors. It was always an uphill battle to get people to vote to raise their fossil fuels tax. Last year’s failed too and it didn’t have the massive spending by oil companies. I’ve seen reports that expensive campaigns don’t really change people’s minds that much, just one or two percent. They’re more effective in motiviating people to vote. And in the current era we’re close to the middle on many things so a small change can have large effects. There’s also another troubling phenomenon this year: ads that completely disguise the issue. Not for the carbon issue but for the soda tax, but it could be used on other issues next time.

         So did the carbon tax fail because right-wingers voted against it, or because it had an uphill climb anyway? How much was it related to other state and national candidates and issues that will be different later? Remember that a failed initiative does not mean it will never pass. It’s like a strike in baseball, you might still make a home run later. The marijuana initiatives failed several times before it succeeded. The response to a failed carbon initiative should be to keep putting them on the ballot.

      7. I’ve heard the one-one hundredth of a percent argument a lot. However, we have to consider that WA covers only 71k square miles of a 197 MILLION square mile planet. That is 3 hundredths of one percent. By this kind of logic, we will *never* affect more than around a hundredth of one percent, and therefore we should keep doing absolutely nothing! And game theory would suggest that every other State has the incentive to do the same, so better start building that climate crisis bunker. Sorry if I disagree with this approach! The point is, sometimes we have to start *doing our part*. Like picking up our trash at the park or riding a bus instead of an Uber when it’s available. And left un-checked, carbon emissions tend to increase exponentially. That 0.01% is A LOT more carbon in 10-20 years time.

      8. “So did the carbon tax fail because right-wingers voted against it, or because it had an uphill climb anyway?”

         I would suggest the latter. Results from SnoCo election results as of this writing show the initiative failing 39/61% with some 200,000+ votes received on the issue. (For the record, the undervotes came in at about 1%.)

      9. An interesting stat I heard is that if everybody on earth picked up just one piece of litter a day, then billions and billions of pieces of litter would no longer be in the environment annoying people and choking birds. 0.01% matters because it’s a contribution however small, it encourages other states and countries to do something too, and it puts us in a mindset to be willing to do more.

3. Disappointed in 1631 failing, but hopeful that a strong majority in the legislature might actually do its job.

   1. I don’t see the legislature voting for something that the votes just rejected.

      Too, if they even were to consider a carbon tax I’m sure their calculus would factor in all the oil money that would then go to their opponent in the next election.

      I’m afraid that, for now, this is done.

      1. I agree except for one point: Initiatives don’t have individual contribution limits. Candidate campaigns do. Party committees also have annual contribution limits. The oil giants will have to resort to independent expenditure campaigns, as they are collectively are only a handful of potential contributors.

         I wonder if there is anything in state law banning cities and counties from imposing carbon taxes.

      2. Brent, I like your idea!

      3. I was thinking about a city or county carbon tax too. it wouldn’t be as effective because it would be easy for people to just buy across the Seattle or King County border, but it would be a start. (And, you know, it might encourage the people who hate it to move to Snohomish or Pierce County and free up housing in Seattle and King County for those who need it.)

      4. “…as they are collectively are only a handful of potential contributors.”

         This isn’t entirely true; perhaps two handfuls is closer to the truth. Nevertheless, those hands are some gigantic hands.

         https://www.pdc.wa.gov/browse/more-ways-to-follow-the-money/committees/statewide?category=Committees

4. New revenue idea:

   Step 1: Heavily tax out of state campaign contributions that flow into the state.
   Step 2: Ensure a carbon tax initiative and soda tax initiative on the ballot every November.
   Step 3: ???
   Step 4: Profit

   1. I like it. 50% tax on out of state political contributions.

5. Glad to see 1631 fail. Sorry “social justice” groups, you poisoned the well by opposing 732. And your poorly designed measure only managed to do 4 points better in a blue wave election cycle!

   What I think would pass is a carbon tax structured similar to the Alaska Permanent Fund: carbon tax revenue goes in one end, a check to every state resident comes out the other. That’s going to be more popular than an unelected board picking winners, or the indirect tax swap of 732.

   1. So what you are saying is that winning a political squabble is more important than the issue itself?

      This is a really poisonous attitude. No one is going to be 100% happy with any carbon tax bill. The cost of not dealing with climate change is incredibly high, and will likely have a huge negative impact on your life personally, unless you only have 5 years to live.

      In fact, if you need a motivation just remember the fires that keep happening… They are just going to get worse every year from now on.

      1. “So what you are saying is that winning a political squabble is more important than the issue itself?”

         Considering that all the groups that pushed I-1631 also opposed the earlier I-732, it’s fair to say that this is true of I-1631 supporters.

      2. This is an extremely good point that you should make to all the “environmental” groups that opposed 732 because it didn’t provide a slush fund for their priorities.

         What goes around comes around!

   2. Scientists agree that we need to start reducing any emissions we can right now. A carbon tax being delayed means more emissions now. It doesn’t matter if 1631 was poorly designed- because of the extra emissions from it not passing, more people will be hurt in the future. We can always amend it in the future- what matters now is getting any carbon tax through as soon as possible.

   3. “Sorry “social justice” groups, you poisoned the well by opposing 732.”

      Which is more important, Schadenfreude and enforcing some kind of karma, or protecting the planet and gaining environmental security? We need any kind of price on carbon when it’s currently zero. Initiatives can be amended after two years if they have flaws.

      1. Yes, which is why it why it was insane for “environmental” groups to oppose 732 rather than pull together to get something workable in place ASAP. So I’m not seeing any tears over their failure to get their perfect after they trashed the chances at good.

      2. What you are arguing is environmental group = environment. In order to punish them for their “insane” approach to 732 (it indeed was), the planet has come out worse off. If that is what some who voted ‘No’ were aiming for, then good luck to us.

      3. It’s called shooting yourself in the foot. Or the cat who chased its tail. Like Guilty in “Johnny and the Bomb”. Paraphrasing, “Guilty had a lame leg so when he got angry at something and chased after it he tended to run in circles, until sometimes he’d see is own tail and get mad at it and bite it.”

   4. Clearly the best solution when you don’t get all the things you want is to burn everything to the ground.

      1. You’ve certainly correctly identified activists approach to 732 not checking all the items on their wish list!

      2. Good thing you’re prioritizing petty squabbles over substantive change. That’s the way to make a difference!

      3. Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? We could’ve had a carbon tax for several years now without one side deciding it wasn’t good enough and pushing for perfect!

      4. Ron Swanson, so because other groups subordinated an important issue over a petty concern, you’re also going to vote incorrectly on an important issue over a petty concern?

6. Unelected board? You mean the one that only has the power to make recommendations, with the true power laying with our elected State Legislature?????

   You make it sound like investing in solar, wind, and transit is a bad thing. The sooner our state can achieve energy independence from foreign (i.e. out-of-state) oil, gas, and coal companies, the better.

7. Why did the federal House and Senate go in opposite directions? I’m surprised the news analysts haven’t asked this, because it could be a growing factor in the future. Is it because rural areas have more influence on statewide races?

   1. Senate terms are 6 years long, and House terms are 2 years long. Every single member of the House was up for election, whereas, only one-third of the Senate was up for election. Of the Senators up for election, many of them were Democratic, defending their seats, and the Republican Senators were mostly in states that sway heavily towards the right. The idea that the Senate could be won back by Democrats NEVER had any merit in my mind, no matter what the “experts” and pundits had to say about it.

      In 2020, another one-third of the Senate will be up for election. They will be heavily Republican, with many of them in battleground states.

      1. All that is true. Also worth mentioning is the distribution of population is such that smaller states have a lot more power. California routinely votes Democratic now, yet that only counts for 2 seats, despite being 12% of the population. That means that North Dakota and South Dakota (all soon to be Republican) have twice as many Senators, despite California having about 25 times as many people. Smaller states tend to vote Republican, while large states tend to vote Democratic. It is routine for more people to vote for Democratic Senators, yet Republicans win more seats. The same thing routinely happens in the House, and has become a lot more common nationally. Long story short — we don’t have a very representative or democratic “representative democracy”.

         Oh, and I haven’t even gotten into voter suppression or the lack of statehood for D. C. and Puerto Rico. Voter suppression, by the way, works best at the margins. You could suppress the heck out of a typical California Senate vote, and it wouldn’t matter — way too many people are going to vote Democratic. In places like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, though — it matters. Speaking of Florida, perhaps the most important election in the country was Amendment 4. Now convicted felons can vote (at least the ones not convicted of murder or sexual assault). That is somewhere around 9% of the voting age public, with a disproportionate number African Americans. That could easily tip the balance in Florida, which would change the way this country operates. If Florida voted Democratic in the national elections, then Democrats would have won every election since 1988.

      2. “The idea that the Senate could be won back by Democrats NEVER had any merit in my mind, no matter what the “experts” and pundits had to say about it.”

         I agree. I for one never bought into this “wishful thinking” narrative. The one that surprised me a bit was the Scott win in Florida. I’ve been chatting this morning with my brother and a friend of mine who are both Florida residents to try to understand that flipped seat there. I guess the attack ads against Senator Nelson by the allies of Rick “Conman” Scott were relentless. Most likely we are looking at another Florida recount. Good grief.

      3. “California routinely votes Democratic now, yet that only counts for 2 seats, despite being 12% of the population.”

         That’s true but that’s an inter-state phenomenon and I think there’s also a separate intra-state phenomenon which is what I’m getting at. People usually fill out the entire ballot or if they leave anything blank it’s only judgships and minor local offices, so I can’t see people voting for representatives but not senators or vice-versa. So the same people chose these positions but they chose opposite for the House and Senate, or at least the aggregate totals de facto result in that. So the question is why, and Engineer’s point seems to make sense that it’s because of which Senate positions happened to be open this round. But I;m still wondering if it’s more than that. And it can’t be “Rural areas have more representation in the Senate” because that’s an inter-state phenomenon, and Senators are chosen by their own state, the same state that chose the Representatives who turned out the opposite.

      4. Mike, might I suggest reading this piece from the 538 blog. The Dems in the Senate were largely on defense this election cycle. The last time we went thru this cycle, 2012, I was very worried about the losses that the Dems might suffer. But our very own Patty Murray, who was the chair of the Senate election campaign committee at the time, came through for us and the Dems held the chamber. (FWIW. My spouse still gives me a hard time about all of my worrying during that cycle. Lol.)

         https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-crazy-is-it-that-the-senate-and-house-might-move-in-opposite-directions-this-year/

8. I voted for 1631 while thinking “is this the best they can do?”

   Putting aside it’s ridiculous complexity, it’s spending board, and having pretty much nothing to offer those not much concerned about climate, the incompetence of these activists is brilliant reflected in the fact that the measure would have exempted a coal plant. COAL! I don’t care it it’s arguably a “reasonable” exemption, it’s COAL! WHY????

   The incompetence if this group is furthered by the fact that they opposed a measure two years ago because the proponents didn’t join their club.

   With all that considered, is anyone surprised that these morons ran a failing measure?

   1. The COAL plant is scheduled to be shutdown anyway. The whole point of the tax is to force a transition. There is no point in forcing a transition that will happen anyway.

      But of course, you knew that, because you researched the claims by the opponents, right? Right?

   2. “it’s COAL! WHY????”

      The coal plant in Centralia was exempted because it is already in the process of being shut down; it will be producing zero carbon emissions by 2025.

9. “Intercity Transit’s resounding victory despite I-1631 losing in Thurston County.”

   An overlooked part of the electorate: people who distinguish between “taxes that fund tangible government services with clear benefits” and “taxes that fund opaque spending plans for unclear benefit.”

10. Surprising absolutely no one, big money and special interests get their way on I-1631, I-1634, and I-1639. I hate how cynical this all feels.

    1. special interests *lost* on I-1639, unless you consider “people who would prefer not to get shot to death” a special interest group

       1. If you’re going to pass laws based on what is likely to kill you, I would point out that there is a long list of things ahead of semi-auto rifles.

       2. To pretend that the NRA is somehow a plucky grassroots citizens group standing up to the big bad gun grabbers instead of one of the biggest lobbying machines in the country is laughable. Gun nuts are *the* original special interest group. And yeah, you’re right. We should ban handguns AND semi-auto rifles.

    2. I saw a sign saying one of them was a billionaires’ measure designed to benefit them. I think it was either the gun control one or the police one. I didn’t understand the message at all. Because I can see billionaires bankrolling a tax cut that affects their profits, but how could a gun control measure or police measure benefit billionaires in particular? So I didn’t understand at all what it was trying to say.

11. Thanks, Donde. If I’d known about the coal plant, could easily have voted “no”. Because I can’t think of a reason we have any fossil-fired power plant in the State. Have read that Texas is aleady going renewable for main reason it’s now the cheapest.

    Of course, nothing in the bill forbidding spending tax money to shift every public use of oil or coal to fossil-less. In other words, I think the bill as a whole might not have been specific enough for people to be comfortable with,

    If I can get elected or appointed (don’t worry, Joe, if I get elected I’ll set a precedent by appointing you. Because Skagit Valley already has massive hydropower already in place. A lot of it with a whole existing railroad, with line of actual passenger cars in Concrete (a town, not a way of disposing of snitches).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27100u7IcII

    But wonder how would it cost-benefit taxpayers to use anticarbon money specifically to put SR 20, SR 2, and I-90 to electric road freight. Electric-only lanes would be best experiment for fuel usage and air pollution.

    Pantographs might handle power-collection at highway speed. Too bad DSTT came along too early. Could have saved a lot of fuel, especially to run the Cascades fuel free. But still other ways to demonstrate quick ways to get the petrol down.

    But most important of all: electric freight hauling might gain a lot of statewide support from Sound to Mountains to Idaho. So Let’s get it on the ballet ASAP and see what happens. If we can only afford one pass, we’ll learn a lot for next try.

    Mark Dublin

    Mark Dublin

12. I-1931 appears to have succeeded in Jefferson, King and San Juan Counties. With some 2.1 million votes now tallied, statewide the measure appears to have failed, trailing roughly 44 to 56% (as of the WA SOS’s 5:32pm update).

    https://results.vote.wa.gov/results/current/Measures-All.html

    1. Ooops. Typo correction:

       I-1631

13. One of the news items lost in last night’s flurry of election results (as well today’s AG firing story) was this one about the ACA:

    “Idaho, Nebraska and Utah Vote to Expand Medicaid”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/health/medicaid-expansion-ballot.html

14. I find comfort remembering that Same sex marriage as a civil right was voted down in states 31 times before 2012… then it changed rapidly because the culture changed. As climate impacts become worse, and the economic advantages of clean energy become clearer.. it will happen.

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