The Path to Fair and Equitable Carbon Pricing

This morning, as I was eating my breakfast, I was thinking about global warming and carbon taxes as I usually do. We had some important progress done this year, and we can use the momentum we have gotten from this next year to pass significant legislation in 2020 in the Washington State Legislature.

Brief history of the climate fight in Washington State:

• 2014: A group of young activists, mostly in college, get an initiative to the legislature passed, jump starting the climate fight here in Washington State.
• 2015: The same group of activists (myself included) successfully gathered enough signatures to file Initiative 732, a progressive, exemption-free carbon tax whose proceeds would go back to tax payers to alleviate the most regressive tax code in the United States of America. Remember that income inequality was the big issue everyone was talking about in 2015. A large number of self-declared environmental groups break off at this point, saying we were doing it wrong, without giving specifics on what they would do differently.
• 2016: We work hard on trying to get Initiative 732 on the ballot, a number of self-declared environmental groups, newspapers, and Governor Inslee slander the bill by misrepresenting what it would actually do, and the only exemption free carbon tax proposal in American history to date was defeated.
• 2017: Governor Inslee proposes his counter proposal. The big difference is that he has exemptions for every industry from coal to natural gas to oil refineries, and is a much lower tax. After it is defeated the Alliance finally proposes their bill, which is very similar to Governor Inslee's bill in terms of who benefits.
• 2018: The Alliance's initiative is defeated. It neither succeeded to get big oil companies to reduce their opposition at the end through massive government handouts to them, and its lower rate combined with massive tax breaks to multinational fossil fuel producing companies, many of whom are also Fortune 500 corporations, fails to get enough environmental activists involved in order to pass.
• 2019: The 100% clean electricity bill is signed into law by Governor Inslee, along with several other exemption-free bills to mitigate global warming.

Here is where we are today, and in 2020 we have the biggest opportunity in a decade to pass major legislation. This is the time to fight for a proper exemption-free carbon tax. In the 60 day session we have 6 days per step, with 5 steps to get through each chamber. I believe several factors of our current situation make 2020 the year to get it done:

• The media was misleading about initiative 732, so people didn't understand what they were voting on, and we simply didn't have the manpower to correct what the Seattle Times, etc. were saying about it.
• More and more Americans are saying they are concerned about global warming. We have successfully moved the Overton Window.
• We are at a point in history where Carbon Washington has more political capital than ever before. We have thousands of members, and this is the time when we have the opportunity to use it. We must use it.
• Every single piece of climate policy which has passed has not had line by line exemptions like 1631 did. If we propose another bill without those line by line exemptions we can win.
• Governor Inslee has announced Global Warming as his main issue. We can use this to our advantage by proposing a truly progressive carbon tax like 732 in the legislature last year. If he supports it, he looks like a flip flopper because he fought against us in 2016, if he opposes it, he looks like he isn't actually serious about global warming, and a liar. He MUST support this bill, since being a flip flopper is better than being a liar, and he must actively fight for it if he is to have any chance of winning the Presidency. We MUST use this to our advantage.
• If the Alliance fights against our exemption free proposal, than they will lose support among their members. If they support it, they look like flip floppers. For the same reason as Governor Inslee, they MUST support this bill or stop existing. They are doomed no matter what because of their behavior over the last 5 years. They should go out better than they came in. It's up to them.

With majority support, and the fact that Governor Inslee and the Alliance have simply no choice but to support a good carbon tax bill we at Carbon Washington can propose through some of our supporters, likely Debra Lekanoff, Sharon Shewmake, Beth Doglio, and Joe Fitzgibbon, hopefully with one or two Republicans as well, I truly believe that we can pass a real carbon tax bill this upcoming legislative session. The Alliance and Governor Inslee have no option but to support it, and we will then have the phone banking power to pressure the chairs of the committees it will go through to get a hearing and a vote. If we get a few groups in the Alliance to phone bank their supporters as well, we will have even more supporters calling legislators, which helps significantly. It is also unlikely that 2021 will have better numbers in the legislature for climate action, so I believe this is the best shot we are going to have for a while.

The political action steps are simple really, and continuing what we have done before:

• June 2019: Start canvassing legislators, getting their support for a bill in the next session and getting their opinions.
• November 2019: Have a solid proposal with as many legislators giving verbal support for it as possible, with a final draft finished by the end of the month:
• January 2020: Two companion bill are proposed, one in each house, with as many cosponsors as we can muster.
• Day 6: Get it to a committee vote:
• Day 12: Get it to Ways and Means.
• Day 18: Get it to the Rules committee:
• Day 24: Passed out of committee.
• Day 30: Passed second house
• Day 36: Committee vote
• Day 42: Ways and Means
• Day 48: Rules Committee
• Day 54: Passed second house
• Soon after Day 54: Governor Inslee signs the first exemption free carbon tax in American History into law.

Since Trump will likely lose next year, given that he lost the House last November, and that we will not have a Governor who has announced climate change as his number one priority for his Presidential run after the 2020 election, the number of legislators who support acting on climate will likely go down after the next election, and more and more Americans are concerned about global warming than ever before, 2020 is going to be the best year to pass an exemption free carbon tax in the foreseeable future.

Design a Carbon Tax Now! Or, how to make a more efficient legislature to solve our problems.

Abstract

Thoughts on how to design a more effective legislature to solve important issues like global warming by using ranked voting.

Introduction

It is now 2019. We are about to start the legislative session with the largest Democratic Majority in Washington State for 70 years, and if we are ever going to get progress done in our state, now is the time.

This means we need to do it right, there are multiple issues plagueing our state. The 5 which most concern me are:

1. The lack of any policy to reduce carbon emissions
2. First Past The Post Voting
3. Insufficient transit in the Seattle Metro Area
4. Underfunded schools at every level.
5. The most regressive tax structure in the United States of America.
6. Police brutality in Washington is in the 13th highest in the nation

Now, when the legislature convenes on 14 January we are going to need to get a lot of progress done. The budget is going to be on the minds of every legislator, and it is going to effect everyone in our state, every agency, and every issue. We are going to need to make big decisions in the next thirty days which are going to have immense consequences for everyone in our state.

One issue which stymies progress is literally everyone has their own agenda and what they believe should be done first. Historically this has a history of people blocking other proposals which are related to theirs because they are not identical in some way.

This is immature, destructive, and hurts everyone in our state. We need a better politics to solve problems effectively and efficiently. My education makes me believe that ranked voting has one answer. A fairly strong speaker of the house is another answer, though not as preferable.

Now, in the most ideal world where everyone was working for the greater good, this wouldn't be an issue. But, news flash, we don't live in a world remotely similar to that world. Shocker, right?

Ranked voting to design bills

A way to do this would be to have legislators propose general topics, and have them consolidated into one list by the leadership of the legislature and the next day have every legislator from each house would vote on the issues by importance using ranked voting. The votes would be tallied within minutes and then would go down the list from the most important to least important in terms of how bills would be proposed to the chamber. The obvious advantage to this is every legislator has a say in the priorities, and have literally no incentive to block legislation because it isn't their pet project first. There would be some granularity to this, so a carbon tax would be separate from a potential income or capital gains tax, etc. which would give the first issue priority. The budget would not be on the list because it is going to be negotiated regardless and the content is already proposed by the governor. I wouldn't touch that process because the state budgets are so sweeping. From that point the bills from each house of the legislature would be proposed in the order which every member already had a say in, meaning it will be fairly democratic. They have an incentive to get them through the first step quickly, because that lets them get onto other proposals. At that point they will all go through the normal committee/public hearing process which already exists.

But then there is another issue which is that the bills proposed will be presented by both houses and you could end up with major issues between the two issues. This slows the process down and is inefficient at providing real solutions. A way to solve this from the beginning so we don't end up with 3 or more bills doing similar things in contradictory ways is that every member of the legislature votes on issues and which pieces to include in the bills as one body in the first week using ranked voting. The votes of every Senator could be worth twice the votes of every Representatives to keep it proportional (in the case of how the Washington State Legislature is structured, since there are twice as many representatives as senators) and they would vote together on how to construct the proposals from the beginning. This gives every bill the highest likelihood of success, guaranteeing every piece of the bill has majority support before it is even compiled.

In the case of a carbon tax, there are several pieces to it:

1. How much will the tax start at?
2. How much and in what way will the tax change over time? (linear vs. exponential vs. flat)
3. Who/what is exempted from the bill?
4. Where does the money go?

Every other tax will work in a somewhat similar way, an income tax would look like so:

1. How much will the tax be? Will it be done by brackets or a smooth function? How much will different income levels pay?
2. What will be exempt?
3. Will the tax change over time?
4. Where does the money go?

An expenditure bill would work like so:

1. How much money is the legislature willing to spend on this project?
2. How should the money be distributed?

This would solve the issues I have seen above, and probably make for a more efficient legislative session with less infighting, because everyone has already had a say on the year's most important pieces of legislation before it is even written. Once the vote is done it would take only a couple days for a few professionals to write the bill out the way the legislators wanted. At that point, it should be fairly easy to get good legislation done quickly, solving the problems which plague our state.

The advantage to this method over a strong speaker is the power is spread evenly between every member of the legislature. This gives as close to a guarantee as I can figure out that they have majority approval before they even go to committee, without free riders which the majority of legislators and citizens oppose. If a legislator was obstinate about not getting exactly what they want on a regular basis they can always be censured by the legislature, for acting on bad faith, and could potentially cost them their seat in the next election. This would be made even easier by having ranked voting for all elections in our state.

1. Legislators propose topics for legislation
2. Legislators choose which topics are the most important
3. Legislators vote on which specific proposals should be enacted for each topic. Proposals will be done with ranked voting. Complimentary proposals would both be included if they have majority support.
4. Bills are presented to the legislature, use our existing process, guaranteeing every section has majority support.

Ranked Voting for Elections

Ranked voting will make a better politic for our state (and eventually country) because we will no longer have a two party system given time. More liberal Democrats will split from more centrist Democrats, and the Fascist Tea Party will split from Eisenhower Republicans. This will mean that members of one party who do not accurately represent their constituents will have a real challenger in the general election. This will give a more accurate representation of what people in our state want to have happen. This will benefit everybody. The top two system is better than party primaries, but still does not guarantee an accurate representation the way single transferable vote does.

Conclusion

By using ranked voting for both designing policies and electing our elected officials we should be more able to solve the problems plaguing our state, our country and our world. It should eliminate waste, corruption, and encourage legislators to focus on solving the very real problems facing our world.

Wish list 2019

We are possibly going to see the largest Democratic landslide in the Washington State legislature since 1940 this year, as a response to Donald Trump and the general liberaliation of America. If Democrats do as well in the General as they did in the Primary, we will win between 66 and 68 seats out of 98 in the House of Representatives, and have a about 30 seats out of 49 seats in the Senate. This is going to give us the chance to make real substantial change in Washington State for the forseeable future. Here are my key issues I hope we will see:

1. Abolish the death penalty
2. Replace the Sales and B&O taxes completely with a combination of a progressive income tax and a carbon tax modeled after I-732. Fund the Working Families Tax Credit. Sales and B&O are regressive, and carbon taxes need to be raised to wean us off of fossil fuels as efficiently and quickly as possible. The carbon tax will be more progressive than the tax proposed by the alliance if modeled after the one I fought for in 2016.
3. Fully fund K-12 education.
4. Reduce college tuition as much as possible.
5. Get on schedule to have state employees salaries get back to being on par with private sector employees over the next 10 years after the 14 year long pay cut (which they erroneously call a pay freeze) which lasted from 2000 to 2014. Over the next 10 years give state employees back the 30% of their pay which is missing due to the pay cuts. People shouldn't need to choose between a competitive salary and public service.
6. Ensure everyone in our state has access to health care. There are multiple ways to do this, Germany, France, Canada, and the UK all achieve this and do it in different ways. But it needs to happen.
7. Implement ranked voting.
8. Upgrade AMTRAK Cascades to high speed rail, expand MAX to Vantucky, and speed up the ST3 timetable. This will reduce congestion and emissions.
9. Get us on track to be carbon neutral by implementing tax advantages for businesses which provide either hydrogen for fuel cells or electric car charging stations. Larger benefits for superchargers. This can be done most efficiently through an income tax.

It is now up to our legislators to succeed in doing the right thing.

Women in Washington State Politics

Ok, so I am doing some research right now on the 2016 legislative election in Washington. It's been my research forcus for two days now. There were 302 candidates for all legislative races in 2016, 99 (32%) of which were women, 203 (67%) of which were men. Of these candidates 85 women continued to the general election, or 85.9% of all candidates while only 67.5% of men continued. In the general election female candidates won 51% of all their races and men won 59% of all races (due to there being f-f and m-m races). This further points out that being female does not hurt your chances of winning, in fact with a 20% lead on men in the primaries it might actually improve your chances, with a 6% gain in the percentage of women in the general election versus the primary. The problem lies in the field of candidates and getting women to file to run for public office. I have as many ideas in how to fix that problem as I do in how to get more women studying economics, finance, computer science, and other male dominated professions, none. Merely implementing a quota won't get individuals to file their candidacy.

Primary data

Gender	Candidate	Candidate	Continue	Continue	Percent continue
Female	99	32.8%	84	38.0%	84.8%
Male	203	67.2%	137	62.0%	67.5%

General Election data:

Gender	Candidates	Candidates	Positions	Positions	Percent won
Female	84	38%	44	35%	52%
Male	137	62%	80	65%	58%

Washington State Legislature Party Breakdown

While looking for maps of the current legislative session by party I came up blank, so I made them myself. Feel free to use and distribute. The map I used as my base is in the public domain. The colors are fairly obvious, with blue being a Democrat controlled district, red being a Republican controlled district, and Purple meaning that the two representatives are from different parties.