Washington is on the map as one of those “laboratory of democracy” states, with citizens who seem relatively comfortable with innovation and experimentation.  Some of those ideas get exported to other states.

A couple of current potential examples-in-the-making: California, the nation’s most populous state, soon will vote on whether to adopt Washington’s Top 2 Primary system.   The Golden State, you may recall, previously copied our “blanket primary,” and thereby incited a lawsuit by the political parties that ended up costing voters in both states the right to wide-open primary voting.  After hating our pick-a-party fallback position, we Worshingtonians passed an initiative backed by the Grange, Secretary Reed and others, to let us pick our two favorites for each office, regardless of party preference.  It’s been popular, and our third running of this new primary will be Aug. 17.

Top 2 was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2008, and now California voters will decide on June 8 whether to adopt Proposition 14.  Reed’s op-ed endorsing the plan appeared in this Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle.

Oregon, meanwhile, may get a chance to vote on a plan to create a Redistricting Commission that would take the political sensitive chore of legislative and congressional map-drawing away from the Legislature.  Washington voters approved a constitutional amendment in 1983 that created a citizen redistricting commission. The process has drawn good reviews and has successfully redrawn districts after both the 1990 and 2000 censuses (is that really the plural?).  The Washington commission will be reconstituted this winter and will have all of 2011 to produce new districts for the Legislature’s up-or-down vote in 2012.

As you may have heard, Washington may very well be in line for a new 10th congressional district after this year’s Census is completely tallied. 

Washington’s other innovations have included a citizen salary commission, with a majority comprised of members chosen at random from each of the congressional districts.  Weird, but it works.  The state Elections Division also has pioneered a number of reforms, including online voter registration and the MyVote feature.  The state’s Digital Archives were the first of its kind in the nation, and now being used as a model.

Cool being us.