Talk:Constitution of Washington

Untitled
71 of 75 members of the Washington Constitutional convention signed the 1889 constitution on 8/22/89. The constitution also overwhelmingly prevailed in the popular vote on 10/1/89 with 40,152 in favor and 11,879 against. This constituion satisfied the Enabling Act passed by the US Congress and approved by the President. A few might call that "conspiracy" but most would call it "democracy."

The 1871 constitution was ignored by the US congress. The article is simply wrong to say that Washington has two constitutions and that the second constitution was not ratified. The secondary historical literature has never varied on the numbers or process. The conspiracy theory may deserve a separate page, but I think the genesis of the theory only dates from the late 20th century. --Joe L.

This page is rather POV, and needs to be either cleaned up or deleted. For example, the terms "phony" and "authentic", and the lack of statements of the contrary perspective. RossPatterson 04:24, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

RossPatterson, do you have a problem with a rat being called a rat? If I wrote another constitution for the state of Washington do you suppose that you might call it “phony”? 4.242.3.73 05:06, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
 * This article is poorly written. --Mboverload 05:10, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Commentary on Washington State Constitution
This article in present form does not, in my opinion, come anywhere close to qualifying for inclusion in an encyclopedia. I would suggest that the creator of this article go back and look for some actual legal authority -- some case law to back up the claims in the article. "Case law" means verbatim re-prints of actual court decisions. In the absence of legal authority, the assertions in the article would be just some private individual's opinion. Famspear 19:55, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Famspear, nearly all court cases on this subject have had their record sealed in an effort to keep this information from the public. I have a good friend who has successfully used this argument in court many times; but not only do they seal the record on each case he tries, they also try him alone and will not let anyone else in the court room during the trial. If you want proof I suggest that you view the signatures and the state seal on the scanned images of the Hand-Written constitution (hand-written documents have more authenticity and are superior to typewritten documents in courts of law) which are on www.jural.org, or write to the Department of Archives and ask for a copy of the state constitution WITH the state seal on it. 4.242.3.73 05:06, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Ah yes, the good old conspiracy theory ploy: no proof because the government's hiding it all! You know what would make this article ever better? Actual text of the Washington State Consitutition, not some rant about how there are supposedly two copies and no sources. --Clpo13 19:53, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Article filled out
I've copied some material out of secstate.wa.gov, which is hopefully more reliable than whatever the ruckus was about above.

Still missing are discussions of the constitution's contents, amendments, and legal history. Melchoir (talk) 09:57, 5 November 2008 (UTC)