In four years as an elected official, few things have troubled me more than the systematic retreat in Olympia from the Legislature’s ethical responsibility and fiduciary role of managing the public tax dollar. There is a lethargic and borderline cowardly unwillingness to question the newly emerging argument that only the voters—or a supermajority of councilmembers—are morally qualified to approve any and all tax increase.

This strategically planned and well-orchestrated trend is unwise on every level and is in my view an assault on the role of representative democracy itself. It says, in effect, that raising taxes is a higher moral priority, authority and obligation than any other function or decision of government.

If decision-making authority over raising taxes is so profoundly more weighted than other policy issues, why did our nation’s founders systematically and categorically reject the idea?

And I must ask where are the learned voices on the right that often stand in defense of the original constitutional guidelines during this new assault on the system of democracy designed and developed by our nation’s founders? Would the right be silent or strive to change our constitutional construct in this same fashion if the left was attempting to implement this same policy for social issues? Simply because the right believes taxes are too high is insufficient reason to embolden them to change our very system of government to institute tyranny of the minority.

We begin with taxes. What policy area will be next?

For example, last year among the most contentious policy issues was the Legislature’s authorization that King County could raise emergency funds for METRO bus service only if approved by voters or a supermajority of county council members. My dear friend Sen. Scott White, may his memory be a blessing, (a Jewish refrain for the departed) masterfully managed this sensitive issue and I fought against endorsing this construct without at least an acknowledgement that it was a dramatic exception and not a new normal.

I do not imply that representative democracy is more weighted than direct democracy, of course, since all power must ultimately rest with the people. I suggest only that our nation’s founders created a system where we both have a specific and carefully crafted role. This move repudiates and rejects our founders’ well-crafted and nuanced relationship between the two.

Many of us are resentful of the nefarious trend that we are seeing this insulting affront to the role of representative democracy again.

None would deny that there is meaningful value in sending some important public policy issues to voters within the context of careful consideration and appropriate statement of the people’s voice. And despite its many inefficiencies initiatives remain a vital tool of direct democracy.

But we have retreated to a humiliating deference to voices of political rage arguing that elections of representatives of the people are essentially invalid. We have allowed ourselves to be intimidated by disguised rage that state taxes are so high, so destructive, so onerous that our very survival is imploding. It is simply not true. By sending any and all decisions about raising taxes to the voters–no matter the size or measure–we fail to exercise our constitutional duty to govern.

Society elects representatives to give voice to issues and ideas, to govern, to study the data and make objective decisions. By making the claim that taxes are effectively the one policy issue of more importance than any other issue, we emasculate our society’s belief that representative democracy has the intelligence or ability to function on any meaningful level.

Washington State is 35th in the nation in the level of local and state taxes. Is the ‘burden’ of taxes so great, so harmful, so destructive to our quality of life, so inefficiently ‘out of control’ that we must effectively restructure our state and nation’s constitutional design even without an open public debate?

This year there are rumblings that additional local authority may be provided to cities and counties but only on the condition that voters or a supermajority of a council possess the authority to raise any taxes. I will resist this effort on every level not because I casually embrace taxes but rather because I so respect our founding principles. I respect local government officials.

If the Legislature acquiesces and lazily accepts this undemocratic notion following last year’s clear statement that it was an exception, we will have effectively forced the constructs of I-1053 on local governments.

This is bad policy, bad politics and bad economics.

When do we fight against this assault on representative democracy and in defense of our constitutional obligations? If not now, when?

We are so much more than what we’ve become.

Your partner in service,

Reuven.