election notes and questions for fellow procrastinators

[eub]

I-1100

Publicola says "Proponents of 1100 argue that the revenue losses under their measure aren’t a big deal; 1105 backers, meanwhile, say [...] Neither argument is credible."

The 5-year revenue loss they have is about $15 million/year. The state budget is about $35000 million/year. So a 0.05% decrease?

I-1082

The Statement Against claims "special exemptions that no other line of insurance is allowed", "Exempts workers’ compensation insurers from the voter-approved Insurance Fair Conduct Act". The Statement For says "no special exemptions for insurance companies. Read the initiative: nothing in I-1082 exempts anyone from consumer protection laws or insurance regulations"

1. I do tend to trust the WA Insurance Commissioner (whom I voted for) over the BIAW.
   
2. Noooooo don't make me read the actual text of the thing noooooooo.
   
3. Well hell the PDF shows up in Preview as weird grayscale gradients and no text anyway.

Has anyone sucked it up and read the thing? If not I'm just going to assume the BIAW is mutilating bunnies [ETA as usual].

Seattle school levy

I've never voted against a school levy, but the state audit findings do make "vote no and donate some money for supplies to your local school" seem pretty tempting.

SJR 8225

This is a weird situation. The Attorney General's Explanatory Statement says: The proposed amendment would not change the constitutional debt limit. It would modify the annual calculation used to determine whether the state’s debt is within the constitutional limit. My summary is: the state could borrow more because the limit would be based on our actual interest paid -- not on the total interest, of which the Feds now pay some. That's how the Statement Against describes the effect too; they think that's a bad idea.

But the Statement For is saying, repeatedly, that this would save the state money: This amendment changes the definition of “interest” in our State Constitution, to make State General Obligation Bonds eligible for this new federal subsidy, called “Build America Bonds.” [...] Last October the state used these Bonds to borrow money for transportation projects and we saved $63 million – enough to build a new ferry!

Is the Statement For, written by the State Treasurer, in fundamental disagreement with the explanation, written by the AG? Why?

HJR 4220

As long as we're talking recent events as a reason for constitutional amendments, I was curious to know if Clemmons' judge would have denied bail if he could. Did he set some maxed-out dollar amount of bail? L.A. Times says no, it was $190K.

Comments

[mh75.livejournal.com]

*sigh* i'm supposed to be doing this tonight, too. It is... challenging.

[pielology.livejournal.com]

The BIAW are known bunny mutilators.

[eub.livejournal.com]

Fixed!

[hattifattener]

I-1082 as printed in my wood-pulp voter's guide isn't very long, so I read through it. Not being familiar with the innards of insurance, though, I can't really say whether the "industrial insurance insurers" are notably less regulated.

Sec. 2 (3,4,7) does seem to indicate that much of the regulation will be done by a (non-State) rating organization designated by the commissioner and having all of the insurers as members. It has to get some stuff approved by the commissioner, but whether this amounts to the same amount of regulation that self-insured organizations already have, I have no idea. WRT the Insurance Fair Conduct Act (summary) I don't see anything in I-1082 that looks like it'd affect it. But again, I really don't know how insurance fits together in the first place.

[eub.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the read-through. "whether this amounts to the same amount of regulation": whether one takes it as a bug or a feature, probably less regulation based on the commissioner's opposition.

I vote "no" on amendments in the absence of a clear reason for "yes", and vote anti-BIAW and anti-Eyman in the absence of... graupel in Hell? So I conclude "no".

[hattifattener]

Ah: Publicola's article makes me think that Sec. 2 (7), regarding the disposition of unabsorbed premiums, is one of the bits that's less regulated than currently; presumably it would re-legalize BIAW's use of these for lobbying purposes. I still don't see where the IFCA comes in, though.

"probably less regulation based on the commissioner's opposition": Compared to the state-run plans, I'd assume so. Compared to those businesses that can self-insure, I can't tell.

Regardless, I-1082 doesn't sound like a good idea. But I like to understand what the other arguments are talking about.