Public Hearing - Senator Kelly Marsh Taitano - December 23, 2019 ...
Senator (Taitano)
Sen. Kelly Marsh ends her rebuttal of my Letter to the Editor of April 21, dealing with strategic voting and senators acting like quarterbacks by passing, rather than voting, thusly:
“At the end of the day, informed by the above, I think about each bill deeply and I vote my conscience. Every leader should.”
The senator passed on the first roll call vote on Bill 335, the curfew bill, suggesting that her conscience didn’t come into play until the second roll call when she voted “no,” i.e. she passed the first time her name was called.
From my April 21 letter: “Query: Are they [Sens. Marsh, Shelton and T. Terlaje] so indecisive that when the roll was called, they hadn’t yet decided on how to vote? Of course not. The “pass” had a far more sinister purpose – to score points! The corrupt practice of what can be labeled “strategic voting” is not new as is shown in an opinion piece I wrote on Dec. 27, 2015, in another publication.”
Sen. Marsh defends her late deployment of conscience by telling us that she doesn’t engage in the corrupt practice of passing as much as other senators! She said, “This term, both Democrat and Republican senators have stated that they “pass” a total of 136 times on 69 bills in 2019 alone. As a point of interest, in 2019, two senators stated “pass” the least out of everyone, at just three times apiece, and I was one of those two…”
Without citing one reason, Sen. Marsh says, “There are various reasons why being able to pass has value. It is up to each senator to determine the value and need for their use or non-use of it for themselves.” The opinion piece I wrote on Dec. 27, 2015, in another publication, which went to Sen. Marsh along with my letter that was edited to fit the Post Opinion Page, clearly laid it out, “When the bill to roll back the salaries (204-33) of all elected officials came on for a vote, Barnes passed. Being stuck near the alphabetical middle of the roll call, Barnes could see her yea vote plus four more from the rest of the list would pass the bill. On the second roll call, the count facing Barnes was 7-7. Her no vote controlled. The bill failed. Had the vote been 8-6 against, coming to Barnes, she could have voted yea, obtained bragging rights for voting to roll back her own salary but kept the money!”
Closing, Sen. Marsh proclaimed, “At the end of the day, informed by the above, I think about each bill deeply and I vote my conscience. Every leader should.”
The senator could assist her fellow senators in living up to her proclamation by championing changes in the standing rules and the law calling for the cutting of the quarterbacks in the Legislature by the abolition of passing instead of voting. We need integrity – not gamesmanship – in our Legislature.
Tall Tales | Jet City Improv | Seattle, WA.