Home / General / Plebiscitary democracy and sub-state federalism

Plebiscitary democracy and sub-state federalism

/
/
/
926 Views

This post addresses a strange and frustrating dynamic in WA state politics: the state legislature, in addition to providing zero dollars annually for public transit subsidies for King County Metro, routinely denies Seattle/King County the ability to tax itself for transit projects desperately wanted and needed by voters. King County Metro, the largest and busiest bus-only transit agency in the country, is facing a devastating 17% service cut because it has no stable funding source, and instead of focusing on a way to stably fund Metro that voters support, they must first find a way to fund the agency in a way that state legislatures will let them. The latter is a much tougher sell than the former. Meanwhile, Clark county voters and politicians have consistently opposed extending Portland’s light rail system to Vancouver on principle, whether they have to pay for it or not. But the legislature is currently proposing to pour a ton of money into a giant (ill-advised and unnecessary) new Columbia river crossing project and fight for federal grants for it, only if it includes, against local wishes, light rail. Now, assuming the project goes forward (and there are reasons to think it shouldn’t), including light rail is the right policy on the merits, but the question remains, why is the legislature deny both King and Clark county what they want here? In comments, the best explanation I’ve seen so far:

They need Seattle’s votes to pass any tax increase statewide. So if Seattle can just go off and do our own thing, that doesn’t work for people outside the city who can’t get statewide approval for transportation packages without us.

If (Seattle/KC) had broad self-taxation authority, we could effectively secede from the state by taxing ourselves for the services we need while blocking all tax initiatives that would benefit the rest of the state.

This seems so obvious I feel silly for not thinking of it myself. There’s probably something about this phenomenon in the Federalism literature, but it’s probably not a wise use of my time to go  track it down. I’m no game theorist, but if this understanding of the dynamic of state politics is accurate, pro-transit Seattle voters should perhaps be a bit more reluctant to vote for roads+transit packages that are mostly regional, with a few crumbs for Seattle, even if they deem them worthwhile packages in the aggregate.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Linkedin
This div height required for enabling the sticky sidebar
Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views :