Ah, the wonders of politics....

OpinionJournal - John Fund's Political Diary

Citizen lawmaking has long been unpopular with the political class. That's why many state legislatures have made it difficult to get initiatives on the ballot. But unions in Washington state are going beyond even these crass tactics. The state labor council tried to cripple an antitax initiative by encouraging its members to masquerade as interested volunteers and request stacks of blank petitions, clipboards and signs, all in an effort to drain much-needed resources from initiative supporters in the hopes of preventing the collection of enough signatures to get on the ballot.

What I liked were the weak responses of the labor rep who initiated the action.

"The e-mail I sent out was part of that effort. Nothing in that e-mail violates any campaign laws or regulations." -- Diane McDaniel, Washington State Labor Council

Nothing illegal, just horribly unethical. And even the claim that she did nothing illegal is questionable in the face of a state law that prohibits anyone from interfering with someone collecting signatures for a ballot initiative. Draining petitions away, while blatantly stating that the purpose for doing so is to stop the gathering of signatures, would appear to violate that law. Unfortunately, the state attorney general's office doesn't think any laws were broken.

As for why such tax cutting initiatives get on the ballot, see the SF Examiner for....

What did $85M buy?

In 1996, backers of a $100 million housing bond measure cheerily pledged that taxpayer approval would result in 3,000 units of housing, including modestly priced homes for police, firefighters and teachers.

A little more than five years later, with 398 apartments completed, city officials are predicting that only 1,818 apartments will be built before the money runs out.