Prof. Aseem Prakash was interview by Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat for reaction to the recent results of Initiative-2117.
Midway through the $16 million political campaign this fall to defend Washington’s far-reaching climate change law, University of Washington professor Aseem Prakash noticed something very unusual.
“They weren’t talking about climate change,” he said. “Climate change is the purpose of the law, and they weren’t focusing on that, at all.”
The first two climate measures, in 2016 and 2018, both failed by wide margins. That even such a green state couldn’t pass a climate vote was a blow to the U.S. movement, leading to hesitancy to push for votes on climate policies in other states.
So this time around, two things changed. One is that lawmakers wrote the Climate Commitment Act so that some carbon fees were reinvested in visible infrastructure projects around the state — such as in transportation. And two is that the campaign focused heavily on that spending, dropping any talk about saving the planet or stemming climate change.
“They stopped talking about the costs completely, and instead focused on benefits, benefits, benefits,” he said. “The whole campaign was like one of those highway signs that reads ‘your tax dollars at work.’”
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