From conservative initiative promoter Tim Eyman, who is displeased with various proposed laws that are being considered by the state Legislature:
In the last legislative session, Governor Gregoire signed 583 bills into law, the most ever in one session.
How many referendums were put on the ballot challenging any of those laws? Just one.
How many initiatives qualified for the ballot? Just one.
The massive number of signatures required to qualify for the ballot is the highest in state history and that huge number is clearly “whittling down” the opportunities for direct democracy.
So, this year, there were 583 laws from representative democracy and none from direct democracy.
From 1999 through 2009, a total of 10,516,645 voter signatures were submitted to the Secretary of State’s office for verification from 36 ballot measures (a mix of liberal, conservative, and non-partisan issues). Here’s the Secretary of State’s response to our public records request: we “have no instances of verified forgeries or fraud in the signature gathering process for statewide measures in those years (1999 through 2006).” We received that same response for years 2007, 2008, and 2009.
This year, the validity rate for petition signatures — signatures that EXACTLY MATCHED the voters’ signatures on the voter registration database — was an astonishing 88%, the best validity rate in state history. From a public press release from the Secretary of State’s office: “One recent measure had a 26.1 percent error rate and plenty have topped 20 percent. Sponsors of I-1033 get a gold star for an unusually low error rate, 12 percent. ‘It’s one of the lowest invalidation rates we’ve ever seen, and possibly even the lowest,’ says initiatives supervisor Teresa Glidden.”
Which begs the question: what’s the problem? The short answer is there isn’t one.
Nonetheless, on Friday, December 4th during Olympia’s committee days, Senate Government Affairs (Sen. Darlene Fairley’s committee) held a work session and discussed upcoming anti-initiative legislation. Officials from the Secretary of State’s office testified and during a power-point presentation said:
“The 70 some years of case law have established two longstanding principles. The first is: Laws to implement the initiative and referendum power must facilitate the process, not frustrate the process. And the second is: There is a presumption that petition signatures are valid.”
Even with such a clear warning, every single bill being contemplated by politicians will only make the process more difficult, none will facilitate it (fa·cil·i·tate : to make easier : help bring about).
* Bills targeting the signature gathering process are always attempted, but the Courts have made clear that citizens have a First Amendment right to collect signatures and legislative interference in the signature gathering process is constitutionally prohibited.
* Bills requiring the Secretary of State to reject perfectly valid voter signatures run afoul of numerous Court decisions.
* Bills targeting signature gatherers have been overturned. In 1993, the Legislature passed a law requiring the people who collect signatures to disclose their names and home addresses — the 9th Circuit struck it down (WIN v Warheit) and wrote: “There can be no doubt that the compelled disclosure of this information chills political speech. As the Supreme Court has explained: Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation — and their ideas from suppression — at the hand of an intolerant society.”
* Bills targeting petition signers are redundant — since 2006, this Secretary of State has released the names and home addresses of petition signers under his reading of the Public Records Act (the constitutionality of which is being decided by the U.S. Supreme Court). But ignoring the legality and constitutionality of the PRA and any new bill on this subject, shouldn’t there be some limits on their use: no commercial use, no publication on the internet, no release of the voter’s actual signature (remember, voters’ signatures on the voter rolls are never released nor is commercial use permitted).And finally, let’s not forget that emergency clauses are a direct attack on the initiative and referendum process because they negate the people’s right to referendum. Every time the Legislature slaps an emergency clause on a bill, they are taking away a right guaranteed by our state Constitution.
Olympia’s gearing up for another legislative jihad against the initiative process this year.
We are ready to defend it.
December 15th, 2009 at 2:30 PM
Eyman as usual is trying to create issues out of non-issues. The law has not changed regarding the requirement for the number of signatures needed to qualify an initiative for the ballot. It is 8% of those who voted in the last Governor’s race. Yes the number can increase every 4 year’s as it should if there are more voters voting because there are more registered voters in the state. More registered voters means more that can sign petitions.
Reasons to look at revising state law include what I would consider abuse of the process to benefit private initiative businesses run by people like Eyman who this year has filed some 24 different initiatives seeking to shop for the best ballot title at taxpayer expense. The ballot filing fee has been $5 since the initiative process was established over 100 years ago. It should be raised to the inflation adjusted price which would be about $100.
Eyman cries about the state wasting money and in this instance he is right. There should be a performance audit done of the expense of the initiative process and adjustments made to bring it into line with the expense of the state having to unnecessarily process multiple initiative filings of the same initiative as the sponsor tries to get an initiative title he likes. Eyman is abusing the system.
December 15th, 2009 at 4:23 PM
A little more to consider:
Slapping emergency clauses on bills makes them “referendum proof” — doing so has two very negative consequences:
1) It prohibits the people from exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right to referendum — they’re not even allowed to try to collect signatures which, even if unsuccessful, provides greater public awareness of the legislation — citizens’ constitutional rights are negated when the Legislature slaps emergency clauses on bills.
2) It removes legislators’ incentive to moderate their bills’ policies to make them more acceptable to (or at least less opposed by) the citizenry. Without even the possibility of a referendum, the Legislature is not deterred from adopting radical policies that they know voters oppose because the potential of a referendum is absent.
http://soundpolitics.com/archives/013607.html
AFY!!thesheepdog!!!
December 15th, 2009 at 4:24 PM
Steve…
Thanks for the information. Well said.
December 15th, 2009 at 5:01 PM
3000 bills were introduced by legislators this year (that’s typical) — and none of them filed a $5 filing fee for doing so. But with initiatives, we must pay $5 for each one.
Senator Benton introduced a bill in 2007 that requires legislators to pay a $5 filing fee for every bill introduced and every amendment offered.
The fact is that these are all fixed costs — the Code Revisor’s office works with legislators to help them draft their 3000 bills every year and the handful of initiatives. The Attorney General’s office does its work and employs its professionals whether there are 0 initiatives or 24 initiatives.
With each initiative we sponsor, we try to constantly refine the language to make it the best possible — this extra effort at the outset ensures we address concerns by both proponents and opponents. Doing it this way mirrors the legislative process.
December 15th, 2009 at 8:21 PM
Why shouldn’t there be online publication of information the government releases to the public?
December 15th, 2009 at 8:46 PM
This is as respectful and civil a comment I can muster about Tim Eyman. Eyman’s like a raging case of scabies on the body politic. We’re going to have to iron our sheets for decades and scrub our unmentionables raw to get rid of the infection he has spawned.
December 16th, 2009 at 9:53 AM
Alone, Eyman has no power.
That he taps into the creeping malaise of the average fraidy-voter is his right.
And he hasn’t been very successful lately since the voter seems to know better.
December 16th, 2009 at 10:11 AM
I think Eyman’s recent failures are because his recent inititiaves are advocating for bigger (State) government to restrict more local municipal governments. He needs to get back to initiatives that restrain state government by returning powers back to the county,cities, or the people.
December 16th, 2009 at 5:10 PM
Jurgen,
With all due respect, speaking of hate…
December 16th, 2009 at 7:56 PM
Yeah I hate Eyman, but not because I’m a hater, but because he is. He cannot stand the Democratic process except in that he can get people all riled up enough to cut their own throats by spouting anti-government propaganda.
Oh yeah, and welcome back Super Dave, I was wondering where cranky builders were hanging these days.
December 17th, 2009 at 8:38 PM
No wonder I hang out elsewhere.
December 18th, 2009 at 7:20 AM
Hey, I can own the phrase cranky just as often as anyone. And while your comments, like those of anyone else at times, may not always be greeted with laurels, I do appreciate having you to kick around.
So, “…come back Dave (Shane)..” and let’s be adversaries.
December 18th, 2009 at 9:33 AM
The fact that anyone supports the suppression of private, registered voters having the ability to affect the legislatve process, puzzles me. When Eyman works independently and openly, it is generally to hold back the politicians from sucking more capital out of the private sector. The only groups who dislike this type of action usually are paid in some capacity with the taxpayers dollars. Thus, the big push to grow government because then, when over 50% of the voters work for government, the easier it is to raise public wages, reduce private influence and eventually this over bloated bubble must be popped, because it is not sustainable.
December 18th, 2009 at 10:18 AM
well said, Miss Odie. Tim has a spine and isn’t afraid to go out on a limb to defend the public right. Politics has become a dirty chess game.
Term limits would go along way to stop this seemingly endless opportunity to the elected class to build up lobbyist base and entrenched self serving positions of power. Every drain needs a good regular flush.
December 18th, 2009 at 12:24 PM
MissOdie:
I dislike Eyman’s proposals, and I’m not “paid in some capacity with taxpayer dollars”. You also misrepresent a lot of the reasons his initiatives are criticized. I don’t dislike his proposals because he “works independently and openly”, but because they are, at best, not very well-thought out and at worst downright ignorant. Take I-1033: How is it fair to limit all tax revenue, but only a group that pays 10-15% of state revenue gets reductions or even refunds of the extra money? It was completely ignorant of which taxpayers pay the most toward revenues. How about his traffic initiatives: how does forcing transportation department into dedicating no less than 90% of their budget to roads, thus severely limiting the amount that can be spent on mass transit, improve traffic for everyone? How do forcing all stoplights in the state to be on only synchronized timers instead of a choice between sensors, timers, or others as traffic patterns allow? These proposals fly in the face of decades of urban planning and traffic engineering lessons we’ve learned.
Eyman wants lower taxes? Fine by me, but he should make educated proposals that don’t go against easily obtained information. Tim may have a spine as madbee says, but does he have a brain to go with it?
December 18th, 2009 at 12:44 PM
I also have to ask again: Why shouldn’t there be online publication of information the government releases to the public?
December 23rd, 2009 at 3:44 PM
As usual Eyman is off base on what is happening with his multiple initiative filings and the cost to state taxpayers of initiatives in general. I support the initiative process and have filed initiatives myself and have had several enacted into law.
Legislators who file bills have to run for office before they can file bills unlike initiative sponsors. If initiative sponsors had to run for office first before they could file initiatives you’d see a sharp drop in initiatives filed.
Also bills in the legislature have hearings in both the House and Senate and undergo revision and amendment after public comment and legislative scrutiny. Multiple votes are required before a bill is passed and the Governor’s signature is required.
Initiatives have no public hearings and are not subject to public scrutiny before they are filed. Eyman’s multiple filings are not to improve the initiative itself but to shop for a better ballot title. Bill Sizemore in Oregon has done the same thing - filing multiple initiatives shopping for a “good’ ballot title.
In 2008 Oregon revised their initiative process to require that inititaive filings require the signatures of 1000 sponsors before they are assigned a ballot title. As Ballotopedia notes Oregon did this to ” Stop ballot title shopping, the practice of filing multiple versions of a measure in order to pick the best ballot title result, a costly process for state lawyers. It will take 1,000 signatures rather than 25 before an initiative petition gets a ballot title.”
Bills before the Legislature do not require the production of an official ballot title and summary like initiatives do. The initiative ballot title and summary are drafted by Lawyers in the AG’s office, and if challenged in Thurston County Superior Court, require public money be spent to defend the ballot title selected by the AG.
Repeatedly refiling initiatives with only minor wording changes after they’ve been assigned a ballot title, is ballot title shopping. Any initiative filed and reviewed by the code revisor, who only comments on techinical issues not legality or constitutionality, can be amended and revised before the sponsor refiles it for a ballot title. Eyman typically only makes his changes after he’s been assigned a baloot title.l
Legislators don’t file 8 or 10 versions of the same bill with only minor word changes. They try to get it right the first time and amend it in a timely fashion. Eyman however is shopping for a ballot title by filing multiple versions of the same initiative and only making changes after he sees the ballot title assigned by the AG. He is abusing the process and wasting taxpayer dollars to benefit his initiative business.