By Angie Vogt, political commentary

Remember Abbott & Costello’s “Who’s on First?” comedy routine?

I’m starting to think that keeping up with the rhetoric of state legislators is just like the famous comedy of errors. It’s becoming a predictable routine and goes like this: Voters go to the polls and vote decisively on some issue (like, say, taxes). In response to the mandate, politicians proclaim to the press and in their town hall meetings that “the voters have spoken” or “we at the Legislature have heard the people’s voice.”

Immediately they begin drafting legislation to get around what the voters have demanded, co-opting “we’re on your side” language, then finding loopholes around doing what the voters have demanded.

Washington state voters, listen up. It isn’t that they’re not getting the message. It’s that they literally do not care what the voters want.

During the 2007 legislative session, the Democrats attached the famous “emergency clause” on 63 new laws (and various forms of spending) in order to protect the laws from voter recall. This clause has been used by the Legislature in recent years to abuse its power against the citizens. They even used it in 2007 to negate the widely approved paycheck protection initiative that the voters passed and in defiance of a United States Supreme Court ruling that supported the voters’ decision.

The latest example of this triad alliance against the voters (governor, Legislature and state Supreme Court) came two weeks ago when the state Supreme Court struck down I-747, the initiative approved by voters that limited yearly property tax increases to 1 percent.

Previously, property taxes were allowed to be raised 6 percent a year. The court has ruled against the initiative, calling it unconstitutional due to confusing language. Some are calling it the “voters are too stupid to know what they want” ruling.

So, what was the governor’s response to the state Supreme Court’s insult to the voters? After two weeks, sensing that she better at least appear to take us seriously, Gov. Gregoire calls for a special session of the Legislature for the vague purpose of “enacting legislation regarding limitations on and the administration of property taxes in the state of Washington.” Ostensibly, she will ask to keep the 1 percent limit in place, even while she has been on record opposing it.

Gov. Gregoire has an agenda to increase spending, which increases the scope and power of government (remember, in 2007, the governor and our current Legislature increased state spending by 33 percent, adding several thousands of bureaucrats to the state payrolls).

While she expressed an intention to “discuss” reinstating the 1 percent limit in a special session of the Legislature, she did this after two weeks of calls from Republicans and the Dino Rossi campaign — and she did it only after having time to prepare a secondary measure, called a “deferment.”

The measure, which has so far not been made available to the public, calls for a 25 percent tax deferment for homeowners who make just below the state median household income of $57,000. A deferment simply delays payment, but trust me, the tax man cometh for that 25 percent and, according to the measure, he cometh with a 7 percent interest fee added on, when the house is sold.

Wait a minute, they’re giving us a brake, no a break, but then taxing us for the break? They’re putting the brakes on the break. A tax on a tax? Who’s on first? No, that’s what I said, who’s on first. Don’t tax my tax, but what tax? That’s what I said…here we go again.

Federal Way resident Angie Vogt: vogt.e@comcast.net.