Initiative 1053 would require supermajority to raise taxes — once more with feeling

INITIATIVE 1053, which would require a two-thirds vote of each house of the Legislature on any bill to raise taxes, or a majority vote of the public, will be on the November ballot. Its signatures have been validated, and The Seattle Times supports it. The people have supported a two-thirds requirement three times already, and the Legislature has at various times set it aside. We believe the people will support it again.

The argument against it is that two-thirds is undemocratic. This is a well-meaning thought, but most of those who express it are not realistic enough, or maybe not cynical enough, about how laws are made.

Politicians are often people of large ego. They respond to people who seek them out, who plead with them, who flatter them and who contribute money to them. And those people most often want the state to spend money.

You could see it Monday night in the public meeting in Tacoma of Gov. Chris Gregoire's budget advisory committee. The meeting was supposed to be for the public to present ideas to the governor, and to the committee, on how the state might close a deficit. More than three-quarters of the speakers spent their time appealing to the governor not to cut programs.

This was not a cross-section of the public. It was a cross-section of organized groups with a direct interest in state spending. These are the same voices legislators hear in Olympia.

The meeting illustrated why it is necessary to have I-1053. The initiative says that if the Legislature and governor want to raise taxes, it takes two-thirds of both houses plus the governor's signature. It also offers another way: A simple majority of both houses may pass a tax increase and refer it, without the governor's signature, to the people.

That method is the most democratic of all.