Thursday, March 05, 2009

Tax and spend state democrats get it right between the eyes: State Supreme Court rules for the People

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The Mayor of the Senate Democrat Munchkin City, Lisa Brown (D-3) was handed her head on a platter today by the State Supreme Court when they refused to overturn I-960, passed in 2007 to limit the massive tax increases democrats love to inflict.

Now, a super-majority is required to jack up our taxes, and since the democrats have spent this state into at least an $8.3 billion deficit, there is no doubt that we're desperately going to need it, since the concept of cutting spending is simply beyond the technical grasp of most democrats generally, and democrat legilsators specifically. This is the money quote:
Many lawmakers, particularly Democrats, dislike the two-thirds vote requirement's infringement on their powers, and the liquor tax proposal was widely seen as a ploy by Brown to challenge the supermajority law's constitutional footing.

God forbid that there should be ANY restraint, required by the voters or otherwise, that would keep our resident socialists from jumping on the Obama Moron Wagon and join wityh him in his efforts to turn us into a socialist utopia.

Idaho looks better all the time.

The Seattle Times

Originally published Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 12:55 PM

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WA Supreme Court tosses tax limits case

The state Supreme Court has unanimously dismissed a case brought by a top Senate Democrat seeking to throw out voter-approved laws requiring a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to raise taxes.

Associated Press Writer

OLYMPIA, Wash. —

The state Supreme Court has unanimously dismissed a case brought by a top Senate Democrat seeking to throw out voter-approved laws requiring a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to raise taxes.

The court ruled Thursday that the court cannot interfere in an internal legislative process.

The court, led by Justice Mary Fairhurst, said the challenge brought by Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, was a political question not to be answered by the courts.

"Intervention of this court into an intrahouse dispute over a parliamentary ruling to compel the president of the senate to perform a discretionary duty would be a grave violation of separation of powers," Fairhurst wrote.

Brown had argued that Washington's "supermajority" tax-vote rule is unconstitutional because it effectively alters the state constitution's provision that lawmakers need a simple majority to pass laws.

The supermajority law was passed by initiative, but Brown argued that a constitutional amendment - much more difficult to pass - is needed to alter the Legislature's voting powers.

The two-thirds vote requirements on taxes were approved in 1993's Initiative 601 and broadened in 2007's I-960. In the past, lawmakers have amended and even suspended the two-thirds provision at times.

A majority of the Legislature could amend such an initiative two years after it is passed by voters.

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