Daniel Walters photo
Nadine Woodward is seen near House of Charity and the Browne Street viaduct during a 2021 press conference about conducting homeless sweeps. Some of the city's loaded poll questions released on Twitter this week focus on how to address homelessness.
Twitter polls, like all non-scientific online polls, are garbage. Twitter is a bad place to gather public feedback in general — infested with toxic trolls, hammer-and-sickle-emojied leftists, and ADHD-addled journalists, it's (thankfully) never going to be representative of the general public.
But it's a particularly terrible way to gather feedback if you word your polling questions in a way that's bound to skew the results.
Now, in some interview contexts, there's nothing particularly wrong with a loaded question. The folks being interviewed can push back against the premise of the question, and sometimes you get the best quotes because of that exchange. But last night, the City of Spokane put out a Twitter poll of five questions that were particularly bad examples of loaded questions.
That's not just our take: here's KXLY News Director Melissa Luck, suggesting the questions sound like a "push poll" — a survey that's really meant to influence the people taking it rather than actually gather their thoughts.
Listening to the mayor’s telephone town hall and while the listener questions are interesting, these survey questions sound like one big push poll. Interested to see where these answers/data are used.
— Melissa Luck ☘ (@MelissaKXLY4) November 2, 2022
Let's look at each of the city's poll questions and dissect what's wrong with them.
1. The loaded question: Has the lack of individual accountability in state drug laws contributed to property and violent crime in Spokane and our state?
Has the lack of individual accountability in state drug laws contributed to property and violent crime in Spokane and our state?
— City of Spokane (@SpokaneCity) November 2, 2022
The load: This assumes as a given that our state's drug laws "lack accountability."
Questions that could have been asked instead: Do you believe the state's current drug laws lack accountability? What do you mean by "accountability?" What would a law that has "accountability" look like? Do you believe the current laws are too tough or too lax? Do you believe that the current state of drug laws are contributing to property and violent crime in Spokane? Do you feel that property crime is increasing locally? Do you feel that violent crime is increasing locally? Do you think that we put too many people in jail or not enough people in jail for drug-related offenses?
2. The loaded question: Has the loss of law enforcement support and tools to safely pursue, detain, and apprehend negatively impacted public safety?
Has the loss of law enforcement support and tools to safely pursue, detain, and apprehend negatively impacted public safety?
— City of Spokane (@SpokaneCity) November 2, 2022
The load: This assumes that law enforcement has truly "lost support and tools to safely pursue, detain and apprehend." A lot of law enforcement would point to legislation enacted last year that restricted some types of high-speed car chases, neck restraints, tear gas deployments, police dog use and other uses of force by police officers in some contexts. A lot of Washington state law enforcement agencies argue that the law has effectively handcuffed their ability to do their job effectively. Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward has called it "legislated lawlessness." But a lot of people disagree with how they interpreted those changes, including Spokesman-Review columnist Shawn Vestal. Crucially, Gov. Jay Inslee signed a new law in March that clarified and pulled back on some of these reform measures.
Questions that could have been asked instead: Do you believe that law enforcement has lost "support and tools to safely pursue, detain and apprehend?"
From most impact to least impact, rank how the following factors have affected local crime rates: recent legislation restricting some types of car chases and police uses of force; the increase of fentanyl use locally; the spike in rental costs and housing prices; shifts in local funding for law enforcement; media and activist criticism of law enforcement; and law enforcement telling the public that they no longer have the support and tools they need to safely pursue, detain and apprehend suspects.
3. The loaded question: Offering an opportunity in an indoor navigation center to seek housing and access services before winter is a reasonable and compassionate expectation for those staying at Camp Hope and the neighborhood?
Offering an opportunity in an indoor navigation center to seek housing and access services before winter is a reasonable and compassionate expectation for those staying at Camp Hope and the neighborhood?
— City of Spokane (@SpokaneCity) November 2, 2022
The load: This question is loaded so hard that it has ceased to be a question at all and has become an incoherent mumble of jargon.
It's not clear what's even being asked. Are we asking if it's reasonable and compassionate to expect those staying in Camp Hope to offer opportunities to seek housing? Or are we saying that it's reasonable and compassionate for the city to offer those staying in Camp Hope the opportunity to seek housing and access services? If so, what does it mean for that to be an "expectation?" Does that mean that we boot them out of the camp if they refuse to look for other places to stay?
Questions that could have been asked instead: It seems like the city was trying to get at the question, "Is it reasonable and compassionate for Spokane to shut down Camp Hope so long as public agencies give residents of the homeless encampment a way to try to find housing elsewhere?"
Other reasonable questions might be: Are there enough available shelter beds to legally shut down Camp Hope under Martin v. Boise? Who bears the most blame for Camp Hope? Is it better for neighborhoods if homeless campers are concentrated in one area at Camp Hope or spread throughout the community? Should the city focus on building more traditional homeless shelters, or "pallet home" style villages, or none of the above? To what extent has the mayor who ran on fixing homelessness effectively fixed homelessness? Make sure to explain your answer, and feel free to use charts and diagrams.
4. The loaded question: Do you support current and expanded measures, like the sit-and-lie and illegal camping ordinances, to keep public spaces safe and usable for everyone?
Do you support current and expanded measures, like the sit-and-lie and illegal camping ordinances, to keep public spaces safe and usable for everyone?
— City of Spokane (@SpokaneCity) November 2, 2022
The load: This is less skewed than the rest of the poll, but it still presumes that the impact of the ordinances is to keep public spaces safe.
Questions that could have been asked instead: Do you think expanding the city's sit-and-lie and illegal camping ordinances will help keep public spaces safe and usable? Do you think these ordinances amount to "criminalizing" homelessness? Do you think they effectively reduce homelessness by pushing people toward services?
5. The loaded question: "Federal pandemic relief funds should be used to continue critical City services before spending money on discretionary items."
Federal pandemic relief funds should be used to continue critical City services before spending money on discretionary items.
— City of Spokane (@SpokaneCity) November 2, 2022
The load: This basically sounds like it's saying "Should we spend money on good important things and not silly frivolous things?" But that's not the actual conflict right now. The issue is that the City Council is concerned that the mayor wants to spend one-time federal pandemic relief funds on ongoing expenses, which is typically an accounting no-no. Generally, the only time it makes sense to spend one-time money on ongoing expenses is when you're in a revenue slump you expect to recover from soon. But we're in the opposite situation: In fact, the city has seen an explosion of revenue since coming out of the pandemic, but we're expecting to be entering a recession soon. Our city budget is in peril mostly because of inflation and the explosion of more generous labor contracts. If you're spending one-time money just to continue critical services you're in deep trouble.
Questions that could have been asked instead: Should we spend one-time pandemic relief funds on long-term capital projects, use it for ongoing expenses to avoid cutting services now, or save it for a potential recession in 2023?
