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Whatcom County voters will have the once-a-decade opportunity to select a group of community members who will review and propose amendments to the county charter, which is essentially the local constitution that guides how the government operates.
This year, 46 candidates filed to run for charter review commission, and ranked-choice voting has emerged as the top issue this election, with nearly a quarter of candidates saying they want to explore the possibility in Whatcom County.
In Washington, most county governments are organized according to state statute — Skagit County, for instance, is governed by three elected county commissioners. Whatcom is one of only seven counties in the state that operate under home rule charter (12 others, including Skagit, have tried and failed to adopt charters). The charter lays out essential elements of how the county is governed, such as what powers elected officials hold, how citizens are represented and how elections work.
In November, voters from each of the five county council districts will choose three commissioners to represent them for a total of 15 commissioners.
Those five county council districts are the legacy of the last charter review commission. Before 2015, the county was sliced into three districts, each of which contained a piece of Bellingham, which gave liberal-leaning city residents a significant amount of sway in county government. Now, thanks to charter amendments, the county has five districts, of which the city gets two. Similarly, voters approved another charter amendment: district-only voting (e.g., a Lynden voter only participates in the election of the District 4 county council member, as well as the “at-large” members).
Todd Donovan, a county council member and a professor of political science whose research focuses on representation and electoral systems, was elected to the 2015 charter review commission and called the experience “really fun and educational.”
He enjoyed working shoulder-to-shoulder with people who “wouldn’t necessarily agree with me on a lot of things, so we had to find out what we did agree on.”
The 2015 commission also lowered the threshold for the number of signatures needed in ballot initiatives and referendums. This citizen-led democratic process was tested this year with the attempted repeal of the Healthy Children’s Fund, but in early September a judge struck down the initiative, saying its substance was not legitimate.
Joe Elenbaas, running to represent District 4, has the unique distinction of having served on every single review commission. Not only that, but he was a freeholder, one of the 21 citizens who were entrusted with drafting the charter in 1979.
He said the motivation behind becoming a home rule county was a dissatisfaction with the existing board of county commissioners and a desire to more clearly delineate the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches. The freeholders also wanted to give citizens the power to pass or repeal legislation through initiatives and referendums.
“It was a new concept and a daunting task,” Elenbaas said about creating a framework for local governance. “Most of us don’t think about government enough to analyze what we need until we have an issue with it. Fortunately we had a lot of intelligent folks working on it, former and current public servants.”
Once the 15 commissioners are elected, they will spend up to a year holding public meetings, reviewing the charter and taking input from the community and county officials. Each amendment proposed by the commission must have a supermajority (at least 10) of votes in favor before it can be forwarded to the county council, which will put the amendments on the next November ballot for voter approval.
Profiles of each candidate are included in the Whatcom County online voters guide. The nonpartisan civic group League of Women Voters Bellingham/Whatcom County has conducted recorded interviews with every candidate who agreed to participate. Those videos will be posted online at lwvbellinghamwhatcom.org on Oct. 3.
Ranked choice voting has been the most-discussed topic coming into this year’s election. In a ranked-choice system, voters are able to rank candidates on a ballot, indicating their first choice, second choice and so on. The idea arose during the 2015 charter review as well — then called “preferential voting,” the proposal did not receive enough commissioner votes to go on the ballot.
Proponents of ranked-choice say it can reduce vote splitting and allow voters to choose candidates they actually like rather than feeling pressure to choose the “most electable” candidate. Opponents say it further complicates voting and counting, and claim it muddies the democratic process.
“It won’t be a partisan issue either because I think a significant priority for more conservative voters out in the county is making sure that they’re not overwhelmed by liberal voters coming from Bellingham,” Eamonn Collins, running for District 2, said about ranked-choice in his interview video.
The local League of Women Voters is advocating in favor of ranked-choice but did not specifically ask candidates about the issue during interviews.
Some other ideas charter review candidates brought up in their interviews include a longer budgeting process, an ethics commission to provide oversight of elected officials, voter guides translated into more languages, moving the charter review commission election to not coincide with the presidential election, and requiring an independent audit of county government.
Not all candidates are offering up proposals during their campaigns. Many say they want to wait and hear from their fellow commissioners and the public.
“I don’t have an agenda going in,” Elenbaas said. “There are 15 of us and 15 different opinions. It’s important to remember you’re presenting to the voters at the end of the process.”
Julia Tellman writes about civic issues and anything else that happens to cross her desk; contact her at juliatellman@cascadiadaily.com.
