Gas initiative message blurry

OLYMPIA — The people running Initiative 912 have bigger things on their minds than simply lowering the price of gas. For them it's an ideological war over transportation and taxation.

The state is too focused on public transportation instead of easing traffic congestion, they say, and the Legislature has embarked on an uncontrolled spree of raising taxes and spending money. For them, I-912, is a way to slap lawmakers back to their senses.

"Their priorities are out of whack," said Brett Bader, a longtime GOP consultant and spokesman for the campaign, which seeks to repeal a 9.5-cent gas tax the Legislature passed in April.

Yet it's not a given that voters supporting the initiative feel the same way.

"Voters are looking at it more as 'I don't want this gas tax,' " said Todd Donovan, a political-science professor at Western Washington University.

Recent surveys by Seattle pollster Stuart Elway found that while many voters share a distrust of government, the single biggest factor mentioned by I-912 supporters was surging gas prices. That makes it hard to stomach the tax increase, which would be phased in over four years.

Forty-four percent cited pump prices as their biggest beef in a poll last month. By comparison, 12 percent said they don't trust the state Department of Transportation and 1 percent complained the gas tax wouldn't help reduce congestion. A poll conducted in August had similar findings.

Richard Ellis, author of the book "Democratic Delusions: The Initiative Process in America," says it's important to separate the agenda of initiative sponsors from the will of voters.

"It's basically political activists that are the source of these initiatives. If you want to understand why these initiatives show up, you have to understand their discontent, not the voters' discontent," Ellis said.

He considers I-912 to be part of the taxpayer-revolt movement dating back almost 30 years to when Howard Jarvis led a successful effort to cut California property taxes with Proposition 13.

Jarvis' rallying cry: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore."

"One of the things conservatives have found is that it's hard to shrink government because most people are kind of attached to spending," said Ellis, a professor of politics at Willamette University in Oregon. "So the much more effective way of squeezing government ... was to cut off the funding for it.

"They see the initiative process, quite rightly, as something that suits their needs very well."

Cut taxes, limit spending

There has been a series of successful initiatives in Washington to cut taxes and limit spending.

Initiative 601, approved by voters in 1993, required a two-thirds vote of both houses of the Legislature to raise taxes, and limited the annual growth in state spending to the average rate of increase in the state population and inflation during the previous three years. In 1999, voters approved Tim Eyman's Initiative 695, a measure aimed at eliminating the state motor-vehicle excise tax. And in 2001, voters approved Initiative 747, which limits annual property-tax growth to 1 percent or less.

Also, two prominent proposals to increase taxes have been soundly defeated at the ballot. Sixty percent of the state's voters rejected Initiative 884 last year. The measure would have increased the state sales tax by a penny to raise $1 billion annually for education. In 2002, more than 60 percent of the voters rejected Referendum 51, which would have increased the gas tax 9 cents to pay for transportation projects.

Jane Milhans, a longtime Republican activist and the sponsor of I-912, said the initiative was born out of bubbling discontent with state lawmakers, starting with the Legislature sidestepping I-601 requirements for a two-thirds vote on tax increases.

Lawmakers earlier this year suspended the two-thirds requirement so they could pass about $400 million in new taxes with a simple majority vote. The Democratic majority in both houses also tinkered with I-601 to allow state spending to grow at a faster rate than the initiative envisioned. The Legislature is allowed to change initiatives with a simple majority vote two years after they pass.

Then legislators passed the 9.5-cent gas-tax increase and attached an emergency clause that exempted the measure from a referendum challenge. That move made it harder to challenge the law. Initiatives need twice as many signatures (224,880) to get on the ballot. Referendums are intended to give voters the final say on laws proposed or passed by the Legislature, while initiatives are generally used by citizens to enact laws.

In addition there's a general feeling that the state is ignoring people stuck in traffic and can't be trusted, Milhans said.

"Those were the major reasons," she said. "It's more than just the tax. They keep reaching their hands out and asking for more money. There seems to be no priority for where the money is spent."

Conservative support for the initiative has grown since Milhans filed it in May. Most recently, the state Republican Party endorsed the measure.

State GOP Chairman Chris Vance says I-912 has turned into a vote of confidence on Democratic control in Olympia.

The state party is still angry about GOP candidate Dino Rossi's loss to Gov. Christine Gregoire and "about the arrogance of the Democrats," he said. "The voters pass I-601 and the Democrats just wipe it away. The voters said no to Referendum 51 and the Democrats just pass a huge tax increase. So they feel like this is the only way to respond."

Mass transit assailed

In many ways transportation has become the new poster child for people who feel the Legislature is on the wrong track, said John Carlson, a conservative radio talk-show host who has championed I-912 on his show and in newspapers.

"It used to be Department of Social and Health Services, the welfare system, was Exhibit A of government inefficiency and failure," he said. "Now it's transportation."

One of their top complaints: a belief that the state is wasting money on public transportation, including carpool lanes.

"HOV lanes and public transportation is social engineering. You know it is. They want to get people out of their cars," said Bob Ryan, chairman of the Pacific County Republican Party, who helped collect signatures for the initiative. "Maybe that's a necessity in King County, but it's not a necessity in Pacific County."

Mark Hallenbeck, director of the Washington State Transportation Center at the University of Washington, said HOV lanes actually do more to reduce congestion than general-purpose lanes because they can cram more people into a single lane of traffic.

Plus, adding general-purpose lanes doesn't necessarily reduce congestion, he said. For example, if you added a lane from Tacoma to Seattle on Interstate 5, you'd simply create an even bigger jam when the additional traffic reaches downtown Seattle. "People would get quicker to a bigger backup," he said.

The anger over public transportation and HOV lanes fits with the taxpayer-revolt movement, said Ellis, the author of "Democratic Delusions."

Conservatives feel that "public transportation is not as desirable as private transportation because government is involved and government is ineffective," he said. "We live in a very polarized world where these issue positions line up."

The I-912 campaign has implications that go beyond Washington state, said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform in Washington, D.C. His group has churned out a steady stream of press releases endorsing the measure. He noted that Oklahoma voters rejected a nickel increase to their gas tax just last month.

If both Oklahoma and Washington reject tax increases, it sends a message to lawmakers that "we do not like your priorities. Knock it off," Norquist said. "I think it will lead to more government reform and fewer votes on tax increases."

There's a broader movement under way in several states, including Washington, to put measures on the ballot that would set limits on state tax increases and expenditures, he said.

Many I-912 backers say they'd like to see an initiative next year to re-establish the I-601 spending controls.

"There is a built-in bias in Olympia to spend money," Carlson said. "I think there needs to be a brake on how much, how fast, so that you don't break the bank. I think it's good policy."

Andrew Garber: 360-943-9883 or agarber@seattletimes.com.