voting heuristics
If any of you are qualified to vote in Washington State, but not registered (or need to update an address), here's the link. If you have a Washington driver's license or ID card, you can register online. I recommend permanent absentee status: it allows for careful, leisurely research, cup of coffee (or glass of wine) in hand.
I've seen (unsurprisingly) a flurry of posts about politics & whether it's OK to post about politics of late. I personally have a filter for partisan stuff. This post is not filtered.
I want to talk about some of the principles I use to make decisions about local elections. My experience is solidly Northwestern-- I spent about four years as an Oregon voter, and five as a Washington voter. That means a lot of my rules of thumb involve decisions about ballot initiatives.
1. Good government costs money.
While I was in high school, Oregon passed a series of property tax limits which made it impossible for local school districts to spend more money on education, even if they wanted to. Predictably, my district lost programs. I routinely vote for spending money on roads, schools, and libraries. I vote to spend money on cops and prisons, too: I personally feel that imprisoning minor offenders is a big waste of my taxpayer money, but given current minimum sentencing laws we need more prisons, so I vote to pay for the prisons.
2. If you want to change the Constitution, you'd better have a good reason.
One of the major uses of ballot initiatives is to change state constitutions. Since moving to Seattle, I've also seen several initiatives which wanted to change the Seattle or King County charters. I don't want ordinary legislation in my constitution-- the worst I've seen involved an Oregon proposal to change the tax rate on long-haul trucks-- and I also don't want to change the number of Seattle councilmen every two years. If a proposal involves basic rights for citizens, I might consider it. Otherwise, I'm voting "no".
3. Somebody's got to look out for the environment.
I grew up in the Portland suburbs. I expect developers to pave streams, build gigantic houses without yards, push interest-only financing, and then ask the city to spend millions of dollars expanding utilities. I now live in downtown Seattle, where everyone is hypothetically liberal but we can't put a transit package together to save our lives (and I mean that pretty much literally: consider the viaduct in the next earthquake). In practical terms that means I vote for transit, transit, public transit, and candidates who might get something done about transit.
What are your heuristics?
I've seen (unsurprisingly) a flurry of posts about politics & whether it's OK to post about politics of late. I personally have a filter for partisan stuff. This post is not filtered.
I want to talk about some of the principles I use to make decisions about local elections. My experience is solidly Northwestern-- I spent about four years as an Oregon voter, and five as a Washington voter. That means a lot of my rules of thumb involve decisions about ballot initiatives.
1. Good government costs money.
While I was in high school, Oregon passed a series of property tax limits which made it impossible for local school districts to spend more money on education, even if they wanted to. Predictably, my district lost programs. I routinely vote for spending money on roads, schools, and libraries. I vote to spend money on cops and prisons, too: I personally feel that imprisoning minor offenders is a big waste of my taxpayer money, but given current minimum sentencing laws we need more prisons, so I vote to pay for the prisons.
2. If you want to change the Constitution, you'd better have a good reason.
One of the major uses of ballot initiatives is to change state constitutions. Since moving to Seattle, I've also seen several initiatives which wanted to change the Seattle or King County charters. I don't want ordinary legislation in my constitution-- the worst I've seen involved an Oregon proposal to change the tax rate on long-haul trucks-- and I also don't want to change the number of Seattle councilmen every two years. If a proposal involves basic rights for citizens, I might consider it. Otherwise, I'm voting "no".
3. Somebody's got to look out for the environment.
I grew up in the Portland suburbs. I expect developers to pave streams, build gigantic houses without yards, push interest-only financing, and then ask the city to spend millions of dollars expanding utilities. I now live in downtown Seattle, where everyone is hypothetically liberal but we can't put a transit package together to save our lives (and I mean that pretty much literally: consider the viaduct in the next earthquake). In practical terms that means I vote for transit, transit, public transit, and candidates who might get something done about transit.
What are your heuristics?