Vote Ye Washingtonians!

My absentee ballot arrived in the mail last week, and I used my extra hour this morning wisely and filled it out. As usual, Jeff is doing a bang-up job blogging local politics, especially the various state initiatives. So here's a brief breakdown of what's going down in Washington Legislative District 45:

I 920. Should we repeal an estate tax that effects 250 of the richest dead people in Washington each year? Let's see. No.

I 933. Should taxpayers have to pay people who want to turn their land into subdivisions but can't because of environmental or other regulation? An easy no.

I 937. Encourages environmental solutions for power companies with 25,000 or more customers. As Jeff explained, this is a wind power initiative. Sure, why not.

King County Prop 5. Should we raise sales and use of land tax by one tenth of one percent to fund King County Transit? I love taking the bus. My stress level has gone way down since I stopped driving here so much (big surprise). I'll pay a little more in property taxes to extend that benefit to others.

US Senate. Maria Cantwell (Democrat) or Mike McGavick (Republican)? I'm not a Cantwell fan, but McGavick is the former CEO of Safeco and his entire campaign reeks of personal greed, power tripping and the same kind of NeoCon nonsense that has landed the country in this spot in the first place. Perhaps if he was closer to Barry Goldwater than Rush Limbaugh, I'd consider it. So congrats Maria, you got my vote.

WA Legislative District 45. Senator: Eric Oemig (D) or Toby Nixon (R). Getting over the "Nixon" part, Eric Oemig's groundpounders came by the house last weekend for a Get out the Vote campaign. The best I've neard from Nixon was some vague attack ads I got in the mail. Bam.

Representatives: I'm not going to go through every candidate, but I do want to point out that Tim Lee, the Republican candidate who wants to represent District 45 on the Eastside, appeared at a convention with his company's staff in "Redmond Sux" t-shirts. I don't know much about local politics, but I know that someone who wants to represent the Eastside shouldn't be parading around in a shirt that tells the world "Redmond Sux."

Of course, in the spirit of full disclosure, I should mention that I'm taking that information from an attack ad that his Democratic opponent, incumbent Larry Springer, sent me in the mail. So who says dirty politics aren't effective sometimes?