Three ideas for cleaner government

Three bills introduced by Rep. Toby Nixon, R-Kirkland, deserve special attention. The topics are different, but they have two things in common: Each protects a fundamental right of the people; in each case, the Washington Supreme Court should have protected that right, but didn't.

• The first bill is about government records. Our public-disclosure law is based on the rule that government records are open to the people. There are exceptions, such as when government is a client seeking advice from an attorney. In a 2004 case, the Washington Supreme Court allowed the Seattle Monorail Authority to withhold virtually any document if a copy had been sent to an attorney. Nixon's bill would narrow that privilege to documents containing legal advice for a court case, which is how the law was interpreted before 2004. • Nixon's second bill is a constitutional amendment about taking private property for public use. It says government can take only the amount of property it needs, and no more; and that if it decides later it doesn't need the property, the previous owner has the right to buy it back at the seizure price plus interest. This issue comes from the monorail experience, particularly the taking of the "Sinking Ship" garage in Seattle, in which the Monorail Authority condemned three times the amount of property it needed.

• A third bill is a constitutional amendment on the right of referendum. This is the right of the people to challenge a new law by immediately petitioning to put it on the ballot. A referendum is like an initiative, except that it requires only half as many signatures. In the state constitution, the people have the right of referendum except for laws "necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety, support of the state government and its existing public institutions."

That is the emergency clause. Before the battle over the Mariners' stadium, courts used to examine declarations of emergency to determine whether the emergency existed. But when the state Supreme Court accepted the Legislature's declaration that baseball was "necessary for the public peace, health or safety," it walked off the job. Since then, the justices have accepted every emergency presented to them, including an "emergency" to create a parking garage.

Legislators now declare emergencies more than 100 times a year, wiping out the people's right of referendum on each of those bills. The practice is abusive, and should be stopped.

Nixon's amendment would require that any bill with an emergency clause require two-thirds approval in each house to pass. That should stop the abuse.