We the People Can Do It! Here's a Brilliant Example

This could be a story about some local and state effort to collect signatures for some initiative for some state ballot for November 2005. Who would care? Well, read on. If this story does not give you a massive mood lift, you belong to the "other side." But, you can change. There's still time.

Here's some necessary background.

Washington State is literally "owned" politically by liberal Democrats. The governor and both houses of the legislature are liberal Democrats. King County, i.e., Seattle, is San Francisco North and boasts such luminaries as Representative James McDermott (D-WA),"Baghdad Jim," "representing" the heart and soul of liberaldom in Washington State, namely Seattle. Despite possibly the closest gubernatorial election in Washington State history in November 2004 and a protracted contest which upheld a 129 vote "win" margin by the Democrat governor, no politician or bureaucrat in Washington State government got any message whatsoever from this election. By the way, had the Libertarian candidate not gotten over 55,000 votes, Washington would have had its first Republican governor in decades.

Domineering Democrats, full of their sense of conquest, proceeded to push through a 9.5% increase in the state gasoline tax, a 33 and 1/3% increase, over vociferous protest from Washingtonians. Following the example set by Republicans in Washington, D.C., the state's spineless Republicans caved in and supported the tax. To prevent a referendum, Democrats attached to this law, along with every law passed in the entire session, an "emergency provision," which prevented citizen referenda. I.e., citizen redress was denied with the passage of the bill and the gleeful signing of it by the governor into law. Democrats literally taunted Washingtonians.

O.K., that's the background. Here's the new stuff. Realize first that Washington State allows ballot initiatives in which citizens can directly make law, issue by issue. It works, but it is intensely laborious.

A group formed the No New Gas Tax Initiative, from grass roots in Western Washington, the very heart and center of Washington liberalism. Democrat bureacrats and legislators, as well as the Democrat governor, and all of their spoils beneficiaries in labor and business, literally scoffed at the initiative effort. Why?

The odds of meeting initiative criteria for the November 2005 ballot were horrendous. Meeting the 8 July 2005 deadline gave this initiative effort only 32 days to gather an insupperably large number of names. Absolutely no "big money" joined the effort; in fact, "big money" wanted the gasoline tax--it gave them "big benefits."

Washington State, by law, required a minimum of 275,000 signatures, of which, 225,000 had to be bona fide registered voters of Washington State. Ordinarily, these initiatives require almost a full year of hard work just to meet minimum requirements. NO ONE HAS EVER MET THE CRITERIA WITH THIS LITTLE TIME.

Ladies and gentlemen, this No New Gas Tax initiative drive was the flame touching gun powder. From its beginnings in Pierce County where Tacoma is located, just south of King County and Seattle, Washingtonians rallied. Not Democrat Washingtonians. Not Republican Washingtonians. Not Libertarian Washingtonians. In fact, no one had a place on the initiative signature sheet to indicate any party preference, and experience made it clear that popular anger cut totally across party lines. Democrat citizens were as fed up with autocracy as were Republican citizens, and even party-undeclared citizens.

Full petitions began rolling in, as did monetary donations.

Several legal efforts were made by the opposers of the initiative to derail this grassroots wildfire. Every liberal judge that could be mobilized in the stop-the-initiative effort was mobilized, and they made all sorts of rulings similar to the thinking of the Supreme Court of the United States when it abolished private property on 23 June 2005. They not only did not stop the efforts, but they only accelerated signature gathering. Mr. and Mrs. Washington State now were furious at these gangster-like efforts to turn them into chattel for special interests.

This became a popular uprising. Americans in Washington State had had enough of decades of socialism creating the infamous Washington State reputation of being the most business unfriendly state in the union. They had had enough of the governor and the legislature feeling they could walk on Washingtonians with impunity.

Howls of protest came from the Seattle newspapers and media talking heads, none of which offered any value, other than possibly lining bird cages for the print media. The powerful became fearful as the days went on, because the signatures accumulated in the many thousands and as did the dollars donated to finance all the efforts.

By the way, the powerful insisted that the No New Gas Tax Initiative, now known as Initiative 912, used paid volunteers to drum up signatures by any means they could get away with, at 75 cents a signature. The fact is that not one person was paid one cent to gather any signatures from anyone at any time. The opposition resorted to ballot stealing, but the word got out through the internet and local radio stations. The stealing stopped quickly.

Then came today, 8 June 2005. The team arrived in the capital of Washington, Olympia, in the early afternoon, hand-carrying the petitions, with all sorts of volunteers providing security by their determined presence alone.

The number one talk radio station which helped to popularize the initiative, KVI-AM, in Seattle announced the results about 3:05 P.M. on the turn-in day, 8 July 2005:

Initiative 912 needed 275,000 signatures. Many more were also needed so that all challenges to signatures could be met from a pool of more-than-needed numbers.

Washingtonians collected 420,570 signatures--in 32 days. They made history.

This is the fourth highest total in the history of Washington State!

Initiative 912 will be on the fall ballot, and, if passed, it will roll back this TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. It is clear that it will pass with great ease.

To call this a "wakeup call" to the Boss Tweed government of Washington State is to fail to give the No New Gas Tax effort and its meaning its due.

If this can be done in Washington State, the northwest center of liberalism and corrupt government, it can be done all over America. It takes effort fused with motivation. Americans can take back their government and make it healthy once more, and this is an elegant example of how.