The inaccurately named “Honest Elections Seattle”, the labor front group behind Initiative 122, is getting national attention for its national ambitions. The initiative would create a voucher program that allows every Seattle voter to donate $100 to city candidates.
The initiative allows Seattle candidates to opt into a system where voters can give $100 to candidates they like. Another property tax hike would fund the $100 vouchers. In words, homeowners will fund vouchers to let other people give that money away. The initiative is estimated to cost $30 million over a 10-year period.
Proponents of I-122 have claimed that their intention is to “level the playing field” for voters engaging in the political process. But, that’s not the whole story.
A local initiative with national ambitions
As Shift has pointed out, rich outsiders funding I-122 are using the initiative as a test. The true intention of I-122 is to see if the strategy is viable on a larger scale. Josh Silver, director of Represent.Us, a liberal campaign finance reform organization, recently confirmed that how Seattle votes in November would have implications outside the city.
Represent.Us has contributed $20,000 to Honest Elections Seattle with hope that, in the future, it could be pushed as a statewide initiative. Silver said, “It makes sense that this would be attempted first in Seattle. Somebody has to go first with everything, including this voucher system.”
Beyond Washington State, news reports also confirm what has become increasingly obvious. Advocates of the so-called “Democracy Vouchers” have national ambitions.
Alan Durning, executive director of the Sightline Institute, which is being paid to promote I-122, recently told the Huffington Post,
“If we can make [vouchers] work in Seattle, if we can demonstrate that it’s a straightforward task of public administration to operate a system that gives ‘democracy vouchers’ to every voter in a large city like Seattle, we’re hopeful that democracy vouchers will then spread to other places as well.”
A local initiative with national support
The Huffington Post goes on to extol the virtues of the “Democracy Vouchers” proposal, pointing out that the idea has (very limited) congressional support. The Huffington Post,
“There is some support for the notion in Congress, too. Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) includes vouchers as part of a program to increase small donations with public funds up to fivefold in his Government By the People Act, the campaign finance legislation endorsed by the House Democratic caucus. Sarbanes will head out to Seattle to show his support for the ballot initiative campaign this fall…
“The Seattle campaign has broad local support with endorsements from five city council members, a dozen council candidates, Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), the state’s League of Women Voters chapter and over a dozen city and state advocacy organizations. National organizations including campaign finance reform supporters like Every Voice, Represent.Us and Public Citizen and the environmental group Sierra Club are backers of the Seattle campaign.”
It’s noteworthy that the Huffington Post, exemplifying what exactly liberal bias reporting looks like, fails to mention the far-Left political affiliation of the national so-called “campaign finance reform supporters” supporting the initiative. Or, that I-122 would allow large special interest groups to bundle the “Democracy Vouchers” from members and direct the large contribution to their preferred candidate.
In other words, I-122 contains a loophole for big labor meant to skew the scheme in favor of Democrats candidates and far-Left issues. So, of course these organizations are pumping big money into passing the initiative.
Speaking of big money, it is also interesting to note that the Huffington Post article skates over the large, outside-of-state contributions Honest Election relies on to promote I-122 as if no hypocrisy existed. The article nonchalantly states,
“Every Voice is the second largest donor to the ballot initiative campaign giving $66,980. The top donor is Sean Eldridge, husband to the millionaire owner of The New Republic and former Democratic congressional candidate in New York, with $200,000 donated. Other top donors to the campaign include the labor-backed Amalgamated Bank with $50,000, the Sightline Institute with $15,485 and Fuse Washington/Fuse Voters with $20,717.”
I-122 seeks to skew elections in favor of far-Left
Whether or not proponents are successful in introducing “Democracy Vouchers” on a national scale depends on a lot of uncertain factors. But, for now, I-122 backers appear more than ready to reap the benefits of what the scheme would mean for Democrats in our state.
I-122’s union exemption saves big labor from having to use resources in Seattle. Big labor would be able to rely on taxpayers to fund its priorities in Seattle. That frees up more resources for big labor to spend in other local and state elections.
In the end, the intentions of the hypocrites who are pushing I-122 come down to one simple reality: to skew elections in favor of the far-Left. I-122 is not about leveling the playing field or honest elections. It’s about promoting a snake-oil form of democracy meant to benefit Democrats—that’s why it includes and union exemptions and seeks to open the door to non-citizen voting.
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