Everett, Wash.
Published: Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Proposed ‘bill of rights’ straight out of Wonderland

By Richard S. Davis

 Wherever you live, you will want to pay attention to a quietly revolutionary issue on the Spokane ballot next month. A group of left-leaning activists, union members and environmentalists pooled their wish lists into “a community bill of rights” that they propose as Proposition 4, amending the city charter. The package, put forward by a group called Envision Spokane, combines fantasy and hubris, the unconstitutional and the unenforceable.

The amendment creates an expansive and expensive bundle of vague new rights, high-minded rhetoric redolent of the contemporary conceit that good intentions trump the law.

Take a deep breath and bear with me.

Residents would have the right to “a locally-based economy,” “affordable preventive health care,” “affordable and safe housing,” and “affordable and renewable energy.” They’d also have the right to “determine the future of their neighborhoods.”

Having fulfilled the au courant progressive agenda, Envision Spokane turns to organized labor’s top priorities. Workers would have “the right to be paid the prevailing wage and the right to work as apprentices on certain construction projects,” extending a bad public law to private contracts. And, they would have “the right to employer neutrality when unionizing and the right to constitutional protections within the workplace.” That last bit is a local version of the unconstitutional Worker Privacy Act pushed by labor in Olympia last legislative session.

And, to leave literally no one and no thing out, the “natural environment” is granted the “right to exist and flourish.” Giving the natural environment standing in court is one thing, giving wetlands and tree frogs a voice is another. Absent Dr. Dolittle and the Lorax, anyone will be empowered to file a lawsuit on behalf of the ecosystem.

Finally, Prop. 4 solves the enforcement problem by making everyone an enforcer. As Envision Spokane puts it: “Any person, neighborhood, or neighborhood council ... could file a lawsuit to enforce their rights.” What that means, of course, is that all of these dubiously aggregated and undefined rights will be the subject of endless litigation.

Alice, the White Rabbit and a host of hookah-smoking characters could not produce a more gauzy and chimerical platform. The plan, however, flows not from the pipe dreams of Sixties hippies, but channels the thinking of Thomas Linzey, a lawyer whom Forbes magazine profiled in 2007 as pushing “wild law” to give “trees, rivers, mountains and all the little critters that live in them ... rights just like the people.”

Linzey is also a leader in efforts to strip businesses of their legal rights, a perspective incorporated by Prop. 4.

In a 2007 interview with Global Exchange, Linzey griped that the Founders got it wrong.

“We got rid of the King,” he told the interviewer, “but we didn’t get rid of an English structure of law that placed property and commerce over the rights of communities and nature.”

He sees himself in the civil disobedience tradition of the abolitionists and civil rights activists. He wants nothing less than a constitutional re-write “to change the DNA of this country.”

As silly as a lot of this sounds, no one should underestimate the forces behind Prop. 4. The movement is a serious threat. The Lilac City is just a test case.

Rich Hadley, head of Greater Spokane Incorporated, says his board voted unanimously to oppose Prop. 4.

“We want people to have health care, roofs over their head,” he says. “We’re very conscious of our environment. It’s a big part of why people come here. ... (But) this was so far out in left field there wasn’t anyone who could see a benefit in it passing.”

It’s doubtful that Prop. 4 could survive legal challenges. It violates the “single-subject rule,” a constitutional problem that has caused the Washington Supreme Court to invalidate several statewide initiatives. And other provisions run afoul of the federal constitution.

But, as Hadley points out, an electoral victory in Spokane — even if subsequently overturned in court — would embolden proponents, who would quickly take this sideshow on the road.

“Our goal is to defeat it soundly,” he says.

We count on our friends in Spokane to stuff this idea back through the looking glass. It doesn’t belong in the real world.



Richard S. Davis writes on public policy, economics and politics. His e-mail address is richardsdavis@gmail.com.
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