Daily Score Blog

A few days ago, the insider-types over at Politico were kicking around shortlists for cabinet appointments and other high level sinecures in DC should Obama win the presidential election. Two prominent northwesterners make the lists. Washington's congressional representative Jay Inslee could be considered for Secretary of the Interior. (The current interior secretary, Dirk Kempthorne, is also a northwesterner.) And the Transportation Department's top spot may go to Oregon congressman Earl Blumenauer.

Inslee and Blumenauer are two northwesterners that Sightline is officially "in the tank" for. They are genuine visionaries on key sustainability  issues. They've already done a lot for the Northwest and for the country -- and here's hoping that they get a chance to do even more.

Measure 63 was largely overlooked by voters and media this year. That's as it should be -- everyone had bigger fish to fry -- but it is worth taking just a moment to absorb the significance of the measure's loss. Measure 63 was a bit like the end of every B-horror movie you've ever seen. You know: after the monster has finally been killed off, everyone relaxes... then suddenly, it's back!

Predictably enough, voters trounced it. And the victory isn't so much significant for its substance -- the measure was a bad idea, but only a small bad idea -- as for the message it sends. The message is this: citizens of democracies like land use laws. No really, they like them. And that's so even though local laws and rules sometimes need fixing and could benefit from better implementation. I don't know why it's so hard for some folks to believe, but voters actually prefer having a say in how their communities are run. They don't want land use anarchy -- and they would really rather not abolish building permits as Measure 63 would have done.

Here's the context. In recent years, an awful Oregon ballot measure spawned a rash of anti-land use initiatives (taking the form of regulatory takings measures) that spread zombie-like throughout the west. They were crushed in Alaska, California, Idaho, and Washington; and thrown out by the courts in Montana and Nevada. And then last year, Oregon voters took care of their own monster when they passed Measure 49, an initiative that put to rest the worst parts of the earlier law. It was a nail in the coffin of a very bad idea.

Or so we thought. Just when everyone finally relaxed... Measure 63 attacked!

It wasn't a huge deal, but I'm glad it's been put to rest. Ideas from Oregon have a way of spreading, so it was good to nip this one in the bud. Now that it's done we can continue a real conversation about how to improve land use protections in ways that benefit individuals and communities at the same time.

There's a lot to write about today.  But I'll save the grand speechifying, and point to one delightful election result on a ballot measure that we've been watching very closley.

Washington State's Initiative I-985 had so many problems, it's hard to know where to begin.  It was billed as a measure to fight traffic congestion, yet I-985 was drafted with absolutely no guidance from competent, knowledgeable transportation engineers.  As a result, it was an unmitigated mess.  For technical reasons I won't get into here, I-985 would have increased traffic backups (pdf link) in many parts of the heavily congested Everett-Seattle-Tacoma corridor.  It also would have slowed down transit and carpools, by clogging Puget Sound's HOV lanes with cars outside of narrowly-defined rush hours.  US officials said that I-985's changes to carpool lane management would put tens of millions of dollars in federal transportation funding at risk.   And to pay for this dog's breakfast, I-985 would have pushed the state budget deeper into the red, forcing cutbacks in schools and other top state priorities, while shifting nearly $200 million dollars from eastern Washington and small-town taxpayers to misguided road projects around greater Seattle.

But I-985 had one enormous and seemingly insurmountable advantage:  soundbites.  Nobody likes congestion. Nobody likes higher taxes. And I-985's backer's claimed that they were offering an irresistible combo meal:  congestion relief without higher taxes.  The facts said otherwise, of course.  But early polling suggested that the ballot measure's seductive title -- "The Reduce Traffic Congestion Act" -- would carry I-985 with nearly 60 percent of the vote.  Grimmer still, the opposition formed late, and was badly outspent.  (Full disclosure:  Sightline officially opposed I-985, something we do only in rare instances, and when we're very sure of our facts. And I even contributed some of my time to the campaign.)

So, what happened?  It did turn out to be a crushing rout, but not the rout that early polls suggested.  I-985 went down in flames, with nearly 60 percent of voters opposed.  Most surprisingly, the opposition was statewide:  I-985 was rejected in all but one county.

This is a result that nobody -- and I mean nobody -- expected two months ago.  

I have no particular insight into what actually happened to turn the tide, but I suspect it's this: Sometimes, substance really can beat soundbites.