There is no official scorecard on this one, but if there is one word I’ve heard more than any other from Democratic politicians over the past several years, it might be “democracy.”
Kamala Harris repeatedly made “democracy is on the ballot” a central theme of her presidential campaign. California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared that “democracy is under assault across this nation.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries promised that “we are going to fight for our democracy, fight for the rule of law, and fight for the Constitution against those who want to turn back the clock.”
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These are three examples from a potential list of 3,000. One question, though: Why does democracy stop mattering once these Democratic politicians don’t get what they want?
In this case, I’m referring specifically to the passing of Washington state’s Initiative 638, which would enforce the separation of boys and girls in K-12 sports if it goes into effect. The reason I used “if” is because there are a lot of Democrats in Washington hellbent on overturning the will of the people.
To be clear, this was not a tight race. The AP called it when the “yes” side of I-638 held a 13% lead with 88 percent of the votes counted. But almost immediately, Democrats decided democracy wasn’t a necessity so much as an inconvenience.
It started with Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who spoke openly about overturning the initiatives at an election-night gathering before the results were even final.
“We are going to take our state back,” Jayapal said. “We’re going to start planning for how we overturn these bad initiatives and how we go back to loving everyone with gender inclusivity the way we have for decades.”
It continued with Washington State Democratic Party Chair Shasti Conrad, who made clear two days later that the election results weren’t going to settle the issue.
“While this result is incredibly disheartening, voters in Washington and across the nation rejected anti-trans candidates up and down the ballot,” Conrad said in a statement last Thursday. “The fight over I-638 is just beginning. We believe this initiative is unconstitutional on its face and support organizations planning to challenge it in court.”
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One of those organizations is Gender Justice League, a Seattle-based LGBTQ advocacy group whose executive director, Danni Askini, told KUOW that it was exploring legal options to challenge the initiative.
“We are having active conversations with our partners and also evaluating what legal options are available to us,” Askini said. “If there is an avenue, we will challenge this ballot measure in court on behalf of our members and our community and trans youth.”
There was even a writer named Robert Cruickshank, who penned an essay for The Bulletin in Seattle comparing I-638 to California’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the Golden State in 2008. Cruickshank laid out a two-pronged strategy for overturning I-638: challenging it in court while simultaneously pursuing a political effort to repeal it.
For one, protecting girls from the athletically superior sex in sports is not the same as denying gay people the right to wed. The latter does not have a victim. But all these examples highlight that, to Democrats, democracy doesn’t die in darkness — it dies in broad daylight when the wrong side wins.
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None of this is to say that legal challenges to ballot measures are inherently illegitimate. In fact, they are a fundamental part of our constitutional framework. It’s just funny that when a vote goes one way for the Democrats, it’s “the people have spoken,” and when it goes another way, it’s “the people have spoken out of turn.”
I was at the Washington state cross country finals Saturday, where a boy who switched to the girls’ team midseason was competing. Several girls voiced their relief that they wouldn’t have to deal with this issue again next season.
Democratic leaders have been ignoring those girls’ voices all year. Seems they’re ignoring the people who voted in their favor, too.