Sightline Institute Research

• Whatcom County Eyes a Prime Election Upgrade

  Proportional representation would deliver fairer representation for voters countywide. Can your voice be heard if you're in a small red bubble in a blue sea? Or if you see yourself as one of a handful of blue flowers in a field of red? In most of Cascadia's governing bodies, the answer is no. In the region's prevailing winner-take-all elections, whichever side gets the most votes wins all the power. This system unfairly overrepresents the biggest group of voters, even if that group is just a hair larger than any others, and even if it makes up a plurality and not the majority of voters. But Whatcom County might be headed for a better model - one that offers fairer representation for everyone. Whatcom voters recently elected a charter commission to review the county government's founding document, which sets the basis for local laws, much like a constitution. One option the commission might consider--- proportional representation. Proportional representation, where leaders are elected based on their proportion of votes, offers a slew of advantages over other methods of electing governing bodies. District lines disappear, so there's nothing for special interests to manipulate via gerrymandering. Elected leaders are more motivated to serve all their constituents, not just their base voters or those in their district. And voters enjoy a more stable government solving their problems from one term to the next, even as district-by-district views change and people move around. Whatcom County currently has seven county councilors, five elected from single-member districts and two elected at large, county-wide. It's a system that has delivered a mix of representatives for now, balancing the often more conservative rural voices with the majority more liberal population based mostly around Bellingham. Unfortunately, it's not likely to continue to deliver fair results over time, and it's not as responsive as proportional representation. Single-member districts rely on sensitive mapmaking decisions, and they tend to ace out voters from smaller groups in winner-take-all elections. Why should Whatcom voters care? And why might the charter commission consider changes to the county's government and election systems? Below I take stock of the challenges that the current single-member districts and first-past-the-post voting system pose. As ideas progress, I'll chart out more specific opportunities the county may choose for fairer representation of all Whatcom voters, wherever they live. With single-member districts, the mapping lines define the government To craft a representative governing body, mapmakers had to draw Whatcom County's five district boundaries carefully. Very carefully. Partisan vote distributions from the most recent presidential election illustrate this point. Across the county, 61 percent of voters chose Vice President Kamala Harris for President in 2024, and 36 percent chose Donald Trump. To make the seven-seat county council mirror that partisan breakdown, mapmakers would want four or even five of the council seats to be held by Democrats and two or three by Republicans. The two at-large council seats can be assumed to be reliably liberal, because the county's majority voting bloc gets to select both of those seats. So, to balance the whole council, the five districts ideally would collectively elect two Democrats and three Republicans. District mapmakers succeeded in achieving this breakdown - for now. In Whatcom County results from the November 2024 election, Districts 1 and 2 are solidly blue: the precincts in those areas voted mostly Democratic. Voters in District 4 mostly chose Trump, and Districts 3 and 5 are mixed: they lean blue in national elections but tend to elect Republican-aligned local candidates. But the mapmaking team probably agonized a great deal over many options to get to these districts. Line drawing is important enough that three of the eight subsections in the elections article of the current Whatc...

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• Republicans Skeptical, Democrats Divided on Election Reform

  Understanding the partisan split on nonpartisan electoral upgrades. ... In an era where everything from electric vehicles to candy mascots seem to divide Americans largely along partisan lines, there's one thing voters across the country agree upon: the political system isn't working well. Unfortunately, if 2024 election reform measures in Cascadia are any indication, there isn't a similar consensus on how to fix government dysfunction - at least not yet. Partisanship played an undeniable role in defeating Idaho, Montana, and Oregon reform proposals (as well as a near miss in Alaska) last year. Democrats and Republicans seemed to approach election reform in different ways: Democratic regions showed higher support for reform than Republican areas, but Democratic leadership was officially neutral across blue and red states. Republicans, on the other hand, were more likely to oppose electoral revamps across the board. While 2024 was not a permanent setback for the movement, reformers will likely need greater support across both major parties to win-over the public at large. Sharing stories of election reform's real-life benefits and expanding its use at the local government level can bring in more voters and usher new reform champions into positions of power. Election reform divided voters along partisan lines more than other issues In 2024, election reform opponents in Alaska put Ballot Measure 2 before voters in an attempt to repeal the state's model system of unified primaries and ranked-choice general elections. Alaska's cast vote record, which allows the public to view data on how voters filled out their ballots without exposing personal information, reveals that 83 percent of Harris supporters voted to keep open primaries and ranked choice voting, while only 19 percent of Trump voters did the same - a difference of 64 percentage points. (Unlike reform measures in other states, a "no" vote was the pro-reform stance; opponents voted "yes" to repeal.) In other words, for the most part, Ballot Measure 2 split voters along partisan lines. The measure was slightly less polarized than explicit partisan contests such as the statewide US House seat. However, significantly more Trump voters supported Ballot Measure 1 (to increase the minimum wage). Other non-election ballot measures across Cascadia showed a similar pattern. Traditionally liberal issues outperformed electoral reform measures even in conservative-leaning states, and it wasn't only because they ran up the score in the more liberal areas. Non-election measures such as Montana's CI-128 (to enshrine in the state constitution the right to abortion) beat election reform by five or ten points in counties and districts across the entire political spectrum. The subject matter could have exacerbated the uniform dip in support. Election reform is unfamiliar to many voters, who are often wary of casting their vote for a concept they don't fully understand. Anti-reform messaging breathed oxygen on the flames of uncertainty. Across ideological lines, opponents advanced the notion that electoral reform (particularly ranked choice voting) would be confusing, costly, slow, and/or unnecessary. Across states, Democratic support differed, and Republican areas aligned Oregon and Idaho provide further clues on how partisanship splits support. In Oregon, counties with high proportions of Democrats (measured by Harris vote share) showed somewhat less support for reform than similarly Democratic counties in Idaho. In other words, Oregon Democrats were likely less reform-inclined than their counterparts across the state line. Take Blaine County Idaho, and Washington County Oregon, for example. Both voted about 32 percent for Trump in the presidential race, but 60 percent of Idaho's most Democratic county supported election reform while only 49 percent of the suburban Portland Oregon county did the same. A similar phenomenon appears in Teton County Idaho, compared with Clackamas County Oregon...

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  11:26
• Washington Housing Bills to Watch in 2025

  More than two dozen bills aim to unlock great neighborhoods, greater affordability, and less red tape for Washingtonians. Washingtonians from Spokane to Sequim, Washougal to Wenatchee, are struggling to afford homes and rents in their communities due to a deep housing shortage. While recent years' laudable legislative actions have begun to relegalize more homes, in all shapes and sizes, it will take years of dedicated effort to make up for decades of stunted homebuilding in cities and towns. It will also take a series of smart policy upgrades to correct for all the restrictions that have outlawed anything but the most expensive kind of housing in the residential neighborhoods of Washington's cities: single-detached houses on their own exclusive lots. Legislators are considering numerous bills in Olympia this year to do just that. Below Sightline catalogs the ones we're watching and, in many cases, weighing in on. The first several are our highest priorities for the 2025 legislative session. Washington residents interested in supporting these bills can subscribe to the Homes4WA emails for action alerts and informational resources. Sightline's priority bills Free communities from costly parking mandates | SB 5184, HB 1299 Sponsors: Sen. Bateman, Rep. Peterson Parking mandates are local governments' requirements that every new home or business come with an arbitrary, pre-determined number of parking spaces. From bowling alleys to churches, daycares to moth breeding facilities (yes, really), these excessive prescriptions drive up the cost of new homes, businesses, and community resources at a time when Washington urgently needs more of all of these things. It writes sprawl into law and makes it harder to build the great neighborhoods and Main Streets people love in their communities. The Parking Reform and Modernization Act would cap residential and commercial mandates and provide full parking flexibility for projects like daycares, senior housing, affordable housing, and other building types that need it most. To be clear, the bill does not bar anyone from building as much parking as they like as part of their project. Rather, it returns these decisions to the people investing in their communities, whether a homeowner, homebuilder, or entrepreneur, who are best positioned to know how many parking spaces they need for their dream to succeed. Incentivize transit-oriented development with smart funding tools | SB 5604 Sponsor: Sen. Liias Transit-oriented development (TOD) is a strategy of building more homes near transit hubs so people can live closer to and more easily access the places where they work, learn, and recreate. Pursuing this strategy in Washington in particular would make the most of the state's large public transit investments in recent years. With these benefits in mind, SB 5604 would establish several new ways for the state to incentivize TOD. But unlike typical TOD bills it does not address zoning at all. For new housing developments in transit station areas, it would create special property tax abatements, sales tax exemptions, lower excise tax rates, and reduced impact fees, along with associated affordability requirements. It's designed to complement TOD zoning, existing or future. High interest rates and construction costs have made apartments difficult to finance, and future permitting has plummeted in cities throughout the state. That's why SB 5604 focuses on helping housing development pencil. It doesn't rezone because that's not the limiting factor at most major station areas in Washington metros. Legalize abundant, affordable apartment homes near transit | HB 1491 Sponsor: Rep. Reed Similar to Washington's 2024 TOD bill, HB 1491 would legalize larger apartment buildings near major transit stops, with stipulations that some of their units meet affordability mandates - known as inclusionary zoning (IZ). Setting statewide minimum standards for multifamily zoning near transit is a key piece of the TOD puzzl...

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  17:08
• Ending Subsidies for New Gas Hook-Ups Can Save Cascadians Millions

  Line extension allowances are on their way out, and regulators can finish the job. Line extension allowances - the term of art for the utility customer-funded subsidies for new gas pipes - are finally, slowly on their way out of Cascadia. This is thanks to regulators who recognize the contradiction of, on the one hand, utility customers subsidizing the proliferation of carbon-intensive gas infrastructure and use, and on the other, utilities' obligations to reduce their carbon emissions over time - to say nothing of the general need to protect customers from the high costs of future stranded assets and bloated energy bills. On January 1, 2025, two Washington state utilities, Avista and Puget Sound Energy (PSE), fully eliminated costly line extension allowances - a first in Cascadia. And Oregon regulators have put Avista and NW Natural on a schedule to ratchet down their allowances annually and ultimately eliminate them in 2027. Similar phaseouts are in the works for Cascade Natural Gas's gas infrastructure subsidies in both Oregon and Washington. Still, regulators have not yet done away with the line extension allowances offered by the 11 other gas utilities across Cascadia, including three in Oregon and Washington. And as more customers every year choose to reduce their gas use or go fully electric, for financial or health or climate reasons, they're leaving a shrinking number of customers on the hook for paying off those gas pipe extensions over time. Plus, new evidence suggests gas utilities that are getting rid of line extension allowances may have overcharged customers already, on the order of millions of dollars in excess of allowed amounts. Regulators across the region can do away with these costly subsidies to obsolescing fossil fuel-based systems once and for all (something California regulators did in 2023). And they can do one better by investigating utilities' possible overcharges to customers to fund these subsidies. The old logic: Endless gas expansion, funded by ratepayers Line extension allowances, as Sightline wrote about in 2023, were once a good deal for both new and existing gas customers - that is, before the world learned of the incontrovertible evidence about the climate and health hazards of burning gas in homes. Without the subsidies, a developer or homeowner could expect to pay thousands of dollars to connect their building to a gas distribution pipeline. So, regulators allowed utilities to subsidize the cost of installing new gas service lines, a cost utilities then recouped by adding them to their "rate base." Financing these subsidies though a rate base works like a home mortgage. Every month ratepayers pay back to the utility some of the original investment plus an interest charge (i.e., profit for the utility). Once the investment is fully paid off (say, in 50 or 60 years for a gas service line), the amount ratepayers have paid is many times the original subsidy amount. In Oregon and Washington, the total cost of line extension allowances over the depreciation life can be four to ten times the initial subsidy price. In Oregon and Washington, utilities will roll into the rates they charge their customers roughly $91 million in costs for gas line extension allowance offered in 2022-23 alone. Sightline estimates that figure balloons to more than $570 million over the new pipelines' "book life" when accounting for utility profits, taxes, and operational and maintenance expenses. In British Columbia, FortisBC padded its rate base with an estimated C$139 million in line extension allowances in 2022-23, which will cost British Columbians more than C$1.5 billion over the 60-year book life of these assets. Historically, existing customers of a utility benefited from this arrangement, even though they were footing the bill for the subsidy. That's because more total gas customers meant further spreading out the costs of maintaining expensive pipeline infrastructure, which lowered everyone's bills. But as ...

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  14:45
• Washington’s Bills to Safeguard and Upgrade Democracy in 2025

  State leaders are considering measures to allow ranked choice voting and turnout-boosting even-year elections, protect voting rights, increase language resources for elections, and more. Washington State leaders are pursuing democracy and elections upgrades that would improve representation across the broad array of Washington communities, boost voter turnout for races large and small, streamline administrative processes for running elections, and offer more diverse candidate choices to advance the priorities of everyday Washingtonians. The legislature has considered many of these issues in previous years, including Sightline's priorities of ranked choice voting and moving to even-year elections. This year, they might finally become law. Smoothing the path for local governments wanting to adopt ranked choice voting Washington state law prevents local jurisdictions from changing their election code.1 This restriction means that they can't use methods like ranked choice voting, if they wish to do so, or that they're very constrained in its application. Yet cities and other districts are pursuing ranked choice voting anyway. Seattle voters adopted it in 2022, for first use in the city's primary election in 2027 - a workaround of the state law that requires top-two general elections. Multiple districts (such as plaintiffs in Yakima County) have requested ranked choice voting as a remedy for voting rights violations under the Washington Voting Rights Act, which the Washington State Supreme Court affirmed as an option in the June 2023 decision Portugal v. Franklin County. Other places are looking to charter commissions or other pathways for adopting the voting method. Ranked choice voting is coming to Washington regardless of additional legislation. Why? Because voters want it, along with the bevy of benefits they see it delivering elsewhere, including less negative campaigns, more focus on the issues, and the neutralization of the "spoiler effect." The state legislature has an important opportunity to serve Washington voters by helping local jurisdictions wanting to make the ranked choice switch to do so smoothly. HB 1448, the Washington VOICES (Voting Options, Implementation, Compliance, Education, and Standards) Act, sponsored by Rep. Gregerson, would clarify state law to provide local governments a clear path to adopt ranked choice voting (again, only if they wish to do so; the bill does not require adoption anywhere) and set guidelines for implementing and educating voters about the reform. The legislation would improve efficiency and consistency for local election administrators while ensuring that voters can access this improved election method to make their voices heard. Boosting voter turnout by allowing local elections in high-turnout years State law in Washington currently requires cities and towns to hold their regularly scheduled elections for local offices, such as mayor and city council, in odd-numbered years, when voter turnout rarely rises above 40 percent. Turnout in even-numbered years, in contrast, is often double that of odd-numbered years, including for local races. What's more, national studies have shown that voters tend to be better represented by leaders elected in even years. HB 1339, sponsored by Rep. Gregerson, would amend the state's election code to allow cities and towns to hold regular elections in even years if they choose, rather than just benefiting from high turnout in even-year special elections like Seattle's recent council race. This change creates the option for more local governments to follow the example of King County, whose voters approved a switch to even-year elections in November 2022. Voters in the state's largest county will soon enjoy fewer campaign cycles to track and leaders who have won support from more of their constituents. This bill would go a long way toward ensuring that local electeds share residents' values and priorities when making decisions that impact everyday life...

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