Dori: Did AG Ferguson sabotage $30 tabs in court?

It certainly looks and sounds to me as if Attorney General Bob Ferguson may have sabotaged $30 tabs in court.

The Washington State Supreme Court decided, 6-3, to uphold the injunction against 976 from a King County Superior Court judge last week, meaning it is temporarily on hold until the Supreme Court can hear it. The King County judge said that the ballot title was misleading.

This, of course, is ridiculous logic. The “no on 976” campaign spent nearly $5 million. There was no “yes” campaign, other than this radio show. We were surrounded by the “no on 976” commercials for months. We knew exactly the choice we were making on the ballot.

In a huge piece of irony, the man who has turned his back on our laws so many times and uses his office to go after those with whom he disagrees politically is now forced by the nature of his position to defend the will of the voters in front of the Washington State Supreme Court. And so, Bob Ferguson had to ask the court to let $30 tabs happen.

976 sponsor Tim Eyman says Bob Ferguson has a conflict of interest

However, there is a lot of thinking that Bob Ferguson essentially sabotaged the 976 initiative in the first place because it was his office that wrote the ballot title. Was that Ferguson’s doing, to set it up in a way that a judge would find to be too confusing for voters?

Either way, the judge’s argument boils down to this: you, the voters, were too stupid to know what you were voting for, and you need smart people like Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff and Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and King County Executive Dow Constantine to help you interpret what you really meant.

Our $30 tabs were supposed to start on Thursday of this week. Think of the thousands of people getting car tab bills, starting Thursday. It should be $30, as per the will of the voters, but instead it will still be hundreds of dollars. The politicians have rigged the system and your will does not matter. They will do everything possible to ensure that they keep getting your money.

What a sham it was that King County was the plaintiff to try to overturn $30 tabs, and it was heard in the King County Superior Court by a King County judge who has sworn his allegiance to King County. Of course, we know who that King County judge will rule in favor of. Now the will of the voters truly means nothing here in Washington.

Tim Eyman has asked everyone to drive around with expired tabs to practice civil disobedience and hope that any cops who catch them will show mercy. Most of the cops I know are more fiscally conservative than our politicians, but I don’t know that they would choose not to write someone up as a political statement.

This is a dictatorship around here. Your votes do not matter anymore.

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