Had Prop. 1 been a contest for the presidency, the candidate — proclaiming nothing short of a landslide — would have declared victory last Tuesday night. Had Prop. 2 been a request for a tax to build, say, a baseball stadium, project organizers would be joyously moving forward, bouyed by a public mandate.
Instead, even though both of these Vashon school district measures won sizable majorities, one of the propositions has failed and the other hangs on by a thread. That’s because this state, unlike most, requires that school bond measures receive a 60 percent supermajority to pass.
The requirement dates back to the height of the Depression, when Washington state voters passed an initiative requiring super-majorities for both school bond and levy measures. In 1944, it was added as an amendment to the state Constitution.
Four years ago, after a decade of effort, opponents of the supermajority requirement for school levies managed to convince the state Legislature to put the issue before voters. And in the referendum that followed, we agreed — by a simple majority, the requirement for all other ballot measures — that a supermajority for school levies did not make sense.
It’s time to consider such a proposition for school bond measures.
Last week, 18 school districts in the state put forward bond measures. Many received a majority of the votes, but only four — or five, if Vashon’s Prop. 1 succeeds — actually won. Many of those districts will try again, shouldering the tens of thousands of dollars it costs to put on an election each time.
It’s hard to fathom why we think a bond measure for a school construction project is more significant than who’s going to lead the nation. Or why a tax to build a baseball stadium can win by one vote over 50 percent, but school bond measures require hundreds, even thousands, more “yeas” to pass.
On Vashon, Prop. 1 leads with an 869-vote margin, yet only five of those votes carry it over the 60 percent threshold. Prop. 2 didn’t even come close to clearing the hurdle, even though it led in the polls by nearly 500 votes.
Some argue that a decision to saddle future generations with debt should carry more weight. But measures that have huge, long-lasting and profound implications — abortion access, medicinal marijuana, death with dignity or, to be more prosaic, how much we pay for our car tabs — are decided every year by simple majorities.
It’s called democracy. It works quite well. Let’s even the playing field and let our schools compete the way nearly every other institution, interest group and political candidate in America does.
