Governor Chris Gregoire is quoted as liking the idea of letting Washington voters decide whether to issue state bonds to help finance school construction projects. Details still are skimpy, so we’ll keep you posted if it gets off the ground.

But the whole notion of submitting state bond measures to a statewide vote is as old as the hills — and pretty darned successful over time.  Rummaging through the (online) storage cellar of the state Elections Division, we see (click here ) that legislatures and governors sent 24 bond measures to the ballot in nine different years, going back nearly 60 years.  They covered a wide variety of public projects. In 1950, for instance, voters approved $40 million for school construction and $20 million for various constuction projects at state institutions, but narrowly turned down a third measure, $20 million for college buildings.

Over time, Olympia sometimes clumped a bunch of proposals together and ran the whole package out, usually with good success. There were three apiece on the 1964, 1968 and 1970 ballots, for instance.  The high point of bond activism so far was then-Governor Dan Evans’ Washington Future bond package in 1972. The Legislature placed a record six of his measures on the ballot. Voters approved five, authorizing huge bond spending for community college buildings, recreation projects, waste disposal facilities, water supply projects, and social and health services facilities. The lone rejection, by a tiny margin, was for public transportation projects. 

Voter-approved projects do not count toward the bond-debt ceiling that constrains Olympia — but future legislatures and governors would have to come up with the regular debt service — principal plus interest — to pay off the bonds. It ain’t free money.