The ultimate decision could have far-reaching impacts, not just on the state’s initiative and referendum process, but also for other “open government” laws like the disclosure of who contributes to political campaigns, and how much they give. For those reasons the R-71 case has attracted the attention of legal scholars nationwide.
The full story at SeattlePI.com, right here.
November 10th, 2009 at 5:39 PM
Approaching this as a “open government” issue is ignoring an important aspect of this case. The chilling effect that results from people knowing that signing petitions on controversial issues might subject them to threats, harassment and violence is an issue of great significance as well.
November 10th, 2009 at 7:33 PM
As well they should be.
If you can’t stand up in public for your hatred and bigotry,
perhaps it’s time to repent and join the civilized world.
November 10th, 2009 at 7:57 PM
citizen,
“If you can’t stand up in public for your hatred and bigotry,…”
Aren’t you the guy who refused to call me because then you would no longer be anonymous?
Just asking…
November 10th, 2009 at 8:23 PM
That’s a magnificent conflation.
I’ve scanned your posts and need no further clarification, thanks anyway.
And I’ll never usurp your right to the same privileges as all other citizens - even your right to view my name on a public referendum.
Maybe that’s a clear enough distinction.
November 10th, 2009 at 10:17 PM
Citizen,
Thank you.
You’re still hiding, aren’t you?
November 10th, 2009 at 10:35 PM
I think there’s a big difference between voicing an opinion and being able to choose whether or not one’s name is attached to it, and signing your name to legally petition against laws and being able to choose anonymity.
If you want open government, it has to be open all the time. You don’t get to choose whether it’s open or not whenever it’s convenient for you.
November 10th, 2009 at 11:22 PM
Bob — Then get ready to watch citizen involvement go down. Once people learn that they can get people to avoid supporting issues by threatening them and harassing them, they will do so, and we get a system ruled by mobs and thugs. You’re not going to like it when it happens against your issue.
Perhaps we will need to add hate-crimes protection to people exercising their rights to initiative and referendum, or contacting their legislators.
November 10th, 2009 at 11:38 PM
1) Any such threats and harassment are already illegal.
2) That is why I said, “If you want open government”… because if it isn’t open government all the time, then who decides what is and isn’t worthy of open government? Why should they get to decide over anyone else?
November 11th, 2009 at 12:54 AM
Blain - a question for you … this country has been around for, I believe, 233 years. In that time, part of the trademark of the country has been open and free expression as well as a desire by the public majority for openness in decision making, and who makes those decisions. Newspapers, at least in print, still demand people sign their names to letters to the editor. I think nearly, if not all, states have election laws that require those who contribute money to campaigns, parties or causes (referenda, initiatives, etc.) to be identified.
So what has changed in that 233 years where people now want to hide their support for an issue? And in that 233 years, how many threats have their been actually acted out upon supporters of a cause. Has it been enough to say that we should hide a persons’ identity because they’re guaranteed to be harmed or harassed for that support?
The state Public Disclosure Commission literally just had a similar discussion on this regarding R-71 names. I believe I blogged it previously so it may be searchable here. It was a fascinating discussion, so I’m hoping we can have our own version of it here.
November 11th, 2009 at 8:46 AM
So why not sign every post Dave Onkels?
Pot to kettle, time to put up.
Plus,
I rarely talk to people I like and respect,
so to make an exception for you would set a disturbing precedent.
November 11th, 2009 at 10:21 AM
Sam,
I agree that our nation’s foundation is built upon a tradition of openness and transparency. I also agree that it is worth preserving, even if a supporter or legislator, or staff person is threatened by an angry citizen.
I can’t answer your question regarding how many supporters of a cause have been attacked over the last 233 years. But I do know that the family of a prominent Seattle Attorney was murdered on Christmas Eve a number of years ago, and the killer committed the crime because of things he was told at a King County Republican meeting. (The man was a liberal Democrat and he was called a communist at the meeting). The killer, after knocking out each family member, used an iron to burn the skin so they would be red. (There are some real sickos out there).
I also know first hand that legislators and their staff receive threats over legislation they are sponsoring or comments that a legislator makes to the media. And, yes, some of the people who make threats attempt to carry them out. During the time I worked in Olympia, one man was arrested attempting to break in to my bosses home and another was arrested and found guilty by a jury of making death threats and stalking.
The arrests and trials were covered by the local media.
More recently, Brian Baird receieved a death threat over health care reform. The FBI is investigating the threat that a uhaul van has his name on it. You can find the article in the Columbian.
So, threats are made and sometimes carried out.
But even after being subjected to threats and stalking, and the fear such behavior creates, I support keeping government open and transparent.
Larry Stickney knew that he was opening up a can of worms when he filed the petition. It was no secret to him what would happen, a fact that was acknowledged by the PDC Commissioners at the hearing.
I strongly disagree with Larry regarding this issue - petition signatures (an act of co-sponsoring public legislation) and campaign contributions should remain public.
November 11th, 2009 at 10:25 AM
It’s easy to understand why the people who tried to overturn the civil rights legislation “the everything but marriage law” don’t want their names made public: that would be a new version of The Scarlet Letter” but in this case the letter would be “B” for bigot, or “H” for homophobe.
Once again the religious right displays its appalling hypocrisy.
November 11th, 2009 at 10:46 AM
Once again the religious right displays its appalling hypocrisy.
The good news?
They lost.
November 11th, 2009 at 11:23 AM
“Once people learn that they can get people to avoid supporting issues by threatening them and harassing them, they will do so, and we get a system ruled by mobs and thugs”
That’s exactly what happened with the mobocracy the teabaggers inflicted on the constituent town hall meetings this past summer. Fortunately, the citizens in the mainstream recognized this hooliganism for what it was and the damage they caused was mainly to themselves. Extremists like the teabaggers seldom if ever “win” long term, but like locusts they breed and swarm again and again….
November 11th, 2009 at 11:48 AM
Hate is wrong, no matter which side it is on!
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/11/10/climate-of-hate-more-threats-from-the-gay-marriage-mob/
AFY!!thesheepdog!!!
November 11th, 2009 at 11:51 AM
> “Once people learn that they can get people to avoid supporting issues by threatening them and harassing them, they will do so, and we get a system ruled by mobs and thugs”
> That’s exactly what happened with the mobocracy the teabaggers inflicted on the constituent town hall meetings this past summer.
No, Bill, you’re incorrect. There is a substantive difference between a group expressing opinions at a meeting and a group “ruling” as mobs and thugs. The tea partiers are not ruling anything. They are exercising their right to express discontent, just as you do in your own colorful way here day after day.
November 11th, 2009 at 11:54 AM
Hatred towards those that do you harm and deny your rights is justified.
Hatred against those that seek those rights isn’t ever.
November 11th, 2009 at 11:58 AM
And that’s the entire difference between the two sides.
No amount of qualification or argument or Youtube links can ever undo that fact.
That’s why they’ll always be revulsion of one side by the other and why,
in some political debate,
there’s hardly room for kindness.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:01 PM
“The tea partiers are not ruling anything. They are exercising their right to express discontent,”
Exactly 180 degrees from the truth! The teabaggers disrupted the meetings, screaming rudely at the congressperson in charge and shouting down citizens who wanted to speak. Someone dubbed it mobocracy, which is accurate, employed by thugs and hooligans. Fortunately, it backfired on them and they rhetorically shot themselves in their feet.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:23 PM
I’s have been to all so many meeting and public hearings/discussions where if you did not agree with the majority there, you were shouted down, and this has come from both left and right, and both were equally wrong, I did go to one town hall meeting in Mt Vernon and asked in a civil way a question of Rep Larsen and received a civil reply, there were comments from both sides there, many with emotion. I did not get the same opinion of that townhall meeting as some you may have seen on TV or Utube!
Methinks if your opinions of townhall meetings are that what can be glean from the media, then as TJ says: The man who reads nothing at all is better than educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. I’s sure if there was TV in them days, TJ opinion of them would have been even harsher!
Ciz, on hatred, it is always wrong, however where standing up for what you believe in is always right (its called freedon, ciz!), opposing something because of the love of freedom is to me all so much better than supporting something because of the hate of others!
AFY!!thesheepdog!!!
November 11th, 2009 at 12:25 PM
Not to mention those moronic signs they wave with Dachau victims supporting the insurance industry and complaining about ACORN while Blackwater robs them blind and murders to boot.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:25 PM
Loving yer oppressors went out with the Haitian slave trade, doncha know.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:42 PM
I’s always fight for love not hate me friend!
AFY!!thesheepdog!!!
November 11th, 2009 at 5:44 PM
Sam wrote:
“So what has changed in that 233 years where people now want to hide their support for an issue? And in that 233 years, how many threats have their been actually acted out upon supporters of a cause. Has it been enough to say that we should hide a persons’ identity because they’re guaranteed to be harmed or harassed for that support?”
The Ku Klux Klan didn’t wear hooded robes because they were fashionable.
November 11th, 2009 at 5:48 PM
From what I understand of history, Todd, not even the Klan stopped people from speaking up about things that they believed in.
November 11th, 2009 at 7:25 PM
Quite right, Sam. I think I may have been mis-understood.
I merely meant to suggest that being able to hide one’s identity to avoid untoward consequences may serve similar functions, whether you were a supporter of institutionalized racism prior to the sixties, or you are a supporter of homophobic discrimination today.
Incidentally, I think one could make a pretty convincing case that the terror campaign of lynchings waged throughout the South by hooded Klansmen did indeed help maintain an institution of systemic discrimination and racial segregation under Jim Crow for many, many decades. And, one could further argue that the climate of fear so engendered often served to squelch much opposition.
In the early sixties, many more did speak up, but we should also remember that many of those who did were subequently murdered.
November 11th, 2009 at 9:15 PM
“The Ku Klux Klan didn’t wear hooded robes because they were fashionable.”
Eloquent, Todd…my compliments!
November 12th, 2009 at 12:02 AM
Sam — What has changed is the internet making it far easier to distribute information from public records. That is unique over any point in the past 233 years (most of which was not marked by universal suffrage of the type we have now, nor these “open government” laws, but, whatever). The current willingness to punish people for supporting the “wrong” side of a question is not unique, but it does seem to be escalating — including the largely sophomoric shenanigans against supporters of Prop 8 a year ago (although there is nothing sophomoric or minor about losing your job, and jobs were lost), and the deeply serious shooting of abortion doctors. The internet is also making it easier for wing-nuts to find each other and support each other’s crazy positions, and for normal people to get all their news from sources which agree with their predispositions, including the ridicule and demonization of those who disagree, encouraging punishing those who disagree. To create a chilling effect only requires a relatively wide-spread fear of reprisals, which can be done with just a few targeted actions. And there is nothing new about chilling effects — cross-burnings have been producing them for quite some time now.
And another aspect of the drive for “open government” that needs consideration is if correspondence (especially email correspondence) with a legislator is a public record. When it comes to the routine “Please vote X on Y” correspondence, I don’t much care, and I’m all good on making threatening or intimidating information open to the public, but when it comes to correspondence having to do with citizens seeking help in dealing with government agencies, I have a large concern, because we’re crossing the line between reasonably open government and reasonable expectations of privacy. If people can’t correspond with their representatives privately about these issues, they will stop doing so.
It’s easy to wrap yourself in the flag of “I believe in open government.” Nobody’s going to disagree with that. But the world is changing, and those changed realities are complicating some of our simplistic feel-good positions. The Law of Unintended Consequences isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
November 12th, 2009 at 12:15 AM
No they just hung black men who voiced their freedoms. Are you guys serious, the Klan as a free speech organization. You’re kidding right?
November 12th, 2009 at 9:29 AM
Most of the KKK meetings I attended always had a few that would argue for not lynching anyone this particular night,
allowing common drinking fountains at the local garage and leaving the crosses unburnt on the lawns of the heathen black man.
Then a vote followed, of course.
November 12th, 2009 at 10:13 AM
Damn Liberals.
November 13th, 2009 at 10:59 AM
FINAL SCORE:
EQUAL RIGHTS: ONE
HOMOPHOBIC BIGOTRY: ZERO
November 13th, 2009 at 11:23 AM
The only valid argument that I accepted from social conservatives who supported rejecting R71 legislation was that this was just a “stepping stone” to full on gay marriage. That’s possible, but only time will tell and I believe that will have a much more difficult time passing. State governed Marriage started out as a tool to keep certain groups from being allowed to marry, kind of ironic that it has been turned around into a way of forcibly allowing certain groups to marry.
Personally, I’d say if you want to get married according to the customs/beliefs of your faith then you should be able to. Otherwise you can simply fill out the state sanctioned domestic partnership contract.
Currently I don’t see how a priest of a religion or denomination that recognizes gay marriage can be prohibited by the state from performing said marriages. Doesn’t that violate the 1st amendment of prohibiting the free excercise of religion?
November 13th, 2009 at 11:29 AM
Also, I was a little surprised by the county breakdown results of R71. Had it not been for the overwelming support from King County this referendum would have easily been rejected.
http://vote.wa.gov/Elections/WEI/ResultsByCounty.aspx?ElectionID=32&RaceID=102369&CountyCode=%20&JurisdictionTypeID=-2&RaceTypeCode=M&ViewMode=Results
It was much closer than I was expecting. I expected some of the moderate to conservative counties to break in favor of R71. Not only did this not happen, but most of them rejected it by significant margins.