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POLITICS
Bills aimed at expanding WA voter participation signed by Inslee
Under one of the measures, people can pre-register to vote starting at age 16.
Author: Natalie Brand
Published: 4:32 PM PDT March 19, 2018
Updated: 7:29 AM PDT March 20, 2018
Governor Jay Inslee signed a series of bills into law Monday, aimed at increasing participation in Washington state’s elections.

“You can think of them as the four horsemen of democracy,” Inslee told an auditorium of students at Foster High School in Tukwila where the signing ceremony was held.

One of the bills would expand pre-registering of teens, allowing 16 and 17-year-olds to sign up so they’re in the system when they turn 18 and can legally vote. Twelve other states and the District of Columbia currently allow pre-registration starting at 16.


“I think it will make a difference,” said senior Kobe Promvongsa who plans to vote for the first time in August during the primary election.

“I want to see people who represent me, who have the same interests as me, who want to better me and my community," Promvongsa continued.

Another bill signed into law will enact automatic voter registration for eligible Washington residents, starting in 2019. Currently, individuals have to opt-in for voter registration when applying for a driver’s license. Under the new system, you would have to opt-out.

A third bill will expand voter registration, starting in 2018, even allowing same day registration in person the night of elections, up until 8:00 p.m.

The Washington Voting Rights Act also passed this session, after stalling in the state legislature in past years. The legislation aims to increase minority representation by giving communities greater leverage, or the possibility of court challenges, if they want to transition from at-large to district elections.

"I have seen our schools and communities grow more diverse, but the makeup of elected bodies that represent us have not kept pace," said Ubah Aden, a speaker at the bill signing, who immigrated to Washington from Somalia.

Seattle and Yakima are examples of cities where city council members are elected by smaller districts, allowing individual communities to have a greater voice in who they choose to represent them.

RELATED: Lawsuit forces history-making district elections in Yakima


The final bill of the series expands campaign finance disclosure requirements by nonprofit organizations that are not defined as political committees.

While the package of legislation was considered a top priority this past session for Democratic lawmakers who currently hold a slim majority in Olympia, Republican Secretary of State Kim Wyman also calls the bills "a positive step forward."

"Your vote is actually really powerful," she told students on Monday. "Your vote does matter."

Wyman says her office will spend the rest of this year gearing up for implementation of the expanded registration in 2019.

"Not only do we want to have this unprecedented access which we're very excited about, we also have to build security on the other side," said Wyman. "We'll be working with our colleagues across the country to learn from their hard lessons and try to make sure our roll out is good for each one of these bills."

Inslee said Washington becomes second only to California to have all three registration related bills on the books, along with the Voting Rights Act. Various other states have individual measures already in place. For instance, Oregon passed automatic voter registration system in 2015.

“We know that this is an important bipartisan process that can lift registration and thus lift participation,” said Natalie Tennant, former Secretary of State from West Virginia who now works with the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law to advocate for increasing voter participation.

“This says a lot about the forward-thinking of Washington state," Tennant said of the package of bills. “People deserve to have their right to vote and they deserve to get registered to vote in an accessible, streamlined manner."

anthonypants posted:

I only wish the ability to spot contradictions were as commonplace as the ability for someone to feign confusion and innocence when confronted with their own contradictions. Truly, it is both a blessing, and a curse.

Reene posted:

How would capping rent at a percentage of the median monthly income for people in a given area make the rent situation worse for renters, exactly? I'm genuinely not seeing how that could possibly be the case.

TheDeadlyShoe posted:

Government housing projects have a middling history at best, unfortunately.

Reene posted:

How would capping rent at a percentage of the median monthly income for people in a given area make the rent situation worse for renters, exactly? I'm genuinely not seeing how that could possibly be the case.

Cicero posted:

Nah, I'd be okay with German-style rent control if we also got German-style land use, but apparently SFH areas are sacred and it would literally kill grandma if there was a 10-unit apartment complex on her street.

Ardennes posted:

It would be great for people who already have an apartment, but it would be rough for people who ever want to leave their apartment, don't have one or are new to the area because the supply would even more limited. Also, new construction would probably slow down. It may eventually help older/wealthier people who can stay in a cheap apartment indefinitely while younger people who started looking after rent control now really have nowhere to live.

Like I said, it is a side step, and there would be winners and losers.

Reene posted:

A percentage cap is a percentage cap. It doesn't matter who is already living there. It would be based on the median wages of the entire area which would keep rents low, definitely lower than they are now. You have not actually explained why new people coming in would magically be paying more if there was a cap on rent based on median income; this explanation literally does not make sense.

twodot posted:

The base assumption is that if you depress rental rates below market without increasing supply you will rapidly eat up all your supply. Now people who want to move into that area just physically can't and have to live somewhere else. If rent control causes available supply to crater, that location is going to be somewhere without rent control (or somewhere with rent control and low demand?). That place likely isn't more expensive, but they are getting barred from a market just as much as a person who can't afford a market is barred from it. That's not the end of the world because there's pretty good arguments about why favoring current residents is preferable to favoring wealthy people, but this sort of scheme is still creating winner and loser groups just on a new (arguably better) metric. (Although the arguments about not favoring wealthy people are arguably better suited for public housing policies, but they're still not bad)

Reene posted:

You're talking about a rent freeze, which is literally not what anyone else is talking about, so that might be part of the disconnect here.

Your argument boils down to "People shouldn't be able to live here because we might run out of places for people to live at some point." Which is neither realistic nor actually worse than the current reality of "there are a lot of empty apartments but nobody can afford to live in any of them because building owners are heavily incentivized to keep units empty but priced above a certain amount because ~equity~."

I agree with lining up landlords but I feel like short term I'm happy with getting a roof over as many peoples' heads as possible.

Reene posted:

You're talking about a rent freeze, which is literally not what anyone else is talking about, so that might be part of the disconnect here.

Your argument boils down to "People shouldn't be able to live here because we might run out of places for people to live at some point." Which is neither realistic nor actually worse than the current reality of "there are a lot of empty apartments but nobody can afford to live in any of them because building owners are heavily incentivized to keep units empty but priced above a certain amount because ~equity~."

I agree with lining up landlords but I feel like short term I'm happy with getting a roof over as many peoples' heads as possible.

anthonypants posted:

1) Could you quote the post to which you're referring? Who's saying that we shouldn't build more housing?

quote:

2) What is the functional difference between "there are exactly zero available rental units" and "housing is too expensive for people to rent"? Could you explain why the first scenario is worse than the second one?

twodot posted:

No my argument is "rent ceilings (regardless of how it's calculated) still create winner and loser groups, just different winner and loser groups than currently exist". However if your cap rent to x% of median wages plan is intended to address vacancy then directly attacking vacancy seems a lot smarter (with a vacancy tax). If landlords are willing to keep vacant units vacant to jack up the rental price, then restricting rent to % of median wages seems VERY unsmart since you're creating an extra incentive for landlords to exclusively rent to wealthy people. Price controls are definitely not going to persuade people who are deliberately keeping units empty to rent those units at a lower price than the price that they are already refusing to rent at.

anthonypants posted:

Can you explain why you believe that any of the rent control examples given in this thread would allow landlords to "keep vacant units vacant to jack up the rental price"? It looks like you've admitted that it's a bad idea, so I don't know why you'd bring it up.

Reene posted:

Your argument boils down to "People shouldn't be able to live here because we might run out of places for people to live at some point." Which is neither realistic nor actually worse than the current reality of "there are a lot of empty apartments but nobody can afford to live in any of them because building owners are heavily incentivized to keep units empty but priced above a certain amount because ~equity~."

whomupclicklike posted:

You all are really trying hard to solve a problem without getting rid of the cause, which is having landlords to begin with

twodot posted:

Reene's the one who brought it up:

Situation: Landlords want to rent units at $X, but people can't/won't pay $X, and landlords are unwilling to bring down prices, so these units are left empty benefitting no one
Ok, that sounds like a problem, let's talk solutions
Solution: Make a law that rental contracts must be at most $Y where Y < X, now landlords will suddenly decide that they do want to bring down prices
How in the world is that supposed to work?

whomupclicklike posted:

You all are really trying hard to solve a problem without getting rid of the cause, which is having landlords to begin with

cheetah7071 posted:

Not trying to be snarky, legitimately curious--what's the non-capitalist solution to the problem of distributing living space you envision?

anthonypants posted:

joint ownership of property would be ideal

anthonypants posted:

cheetah7071 posted:

Not trying to be snarky, legitimately curious--what's the non-capitalist solution to the problem of distributing living space you envision?

Cicero posted:

That's because we're discussing solutions that have at least a slim chance of actually happening, rather than jerking it to marxist fantasies.

cheetah7071 posted:

I was more interested in the question of how is it decided who gets to live where but I totally understand if it'd be a huge effortpost that you don't want to do

I'm totally in support of the idea that it shouldn't cost money just to live but there's a ton of implementational problems that I see and don't personally see a solution to.

cheetah7071 posted:

I was more interested in the question of how is it decided who gets to live where but I totally understand if it'd be a huge effortpost that you don't want to do

I'm totally in support of the idea that it shouldn't cost money just to live but there's a ton of implementational problems that I see and don't personally see a solution to.

whomupclicklike posted:

I'm going to be real with you: I don't know how we should decide who gets to live where either. I just think the only way to make sure that there is adequate housing for people is to get rid of landlords who are a barrier to housing to begin with.

Cicero posted:

That's because we're discussing solutions that have at least a slim chance of actually happening, rather than jerking it to marxist fantasies.

Peachfart posted:

This is all they know how to do. Hard societal questions that require a lot of work can be handwaved with 'socialize it lol'.

Peachfart posted:

This is all they know how to do. Hard societal questions that require a lot of work can be handwaved with 'socialize it lol'.

Peachfart posted:

This is all they know how to do. Hard societal questions that require a lot of work can be handwaved with 'socialize it lol'.