Ultimately, Washington State Democrats did not pass a bill lowering car tab valuations last session despite Republicans and drive-time conservative radio hosts driving a lot of uproar about it. Some predicted this would spell doom for suburban Democrats. That didn’t happen in the midterms. Instead, Democrats were on the offensive gaining seating and losing exactly none in the Sound Transit Taxing District.
In fact, State Sen. Maralyn Chase lost her seat to fellow Democrat Jesse Salomon in LD32 likely in part due to her vote to take a big bite–perhaps as large as $2.1 billion–out of Sound Transit’s budget via the senate’s car tab bill.
The justification for Democrats pushing a car tab bill in the first place was to defend suburban Democrats from angry constituents and calm future backlash. Democratic leadership said as much in defending why they brought up the bill despite Democratic control of both chambers. This was about winning the next transit measure, Democratic State Sen. Strom Peterson wrote in our questionnaire.
Nonetheless, after midterms, the only Sound Transit Taxing District seats that Republicans will be representing are in LD25 and LD31, deep red areas of Pierce County. Many Republicans ran on a $30 car tab slate, taking their cues from Tim Eyman. It didn’t work (which is lucky since this could have blown a $8 billion hole in Sound Transit’s budget). The Sound Transit 3 ballot measure didn’t win Pierce County in the first place so this is not entirely a change of opinion on the matter. That leaves about 22 other Sound Transit taxpaying legislative districts from Everett to Orting where Democrats swept. This is simply a dominant performance far from a rebuke for car tabs.
“Mark Schoesler understands well what Seattle transit advocates are slow to recognize; that the failure of #waleg Dems to reform car tabs is a win for his team. He gets a powerful stick to beat suburban Dems with this Fall, and a chance to play for higher stakes next session,” Seattle Transit Blog contributor Dan Ryan tweeted.
