Washington
The state Legislature is asking voters to support energy-efficiency renovations at schools around the state. The measure sends about $500 million in bonds to the November ballot. The House gave final legislative approval to the bill on a a 59-38 vote Monday night.
Richard Winger gives a great rundown at Ballot Access News of the many amicus briefs submitted in Doe v. Reed. The United States Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether signatures on initiative and referendum petitions are private or a matter of public record.
With a tough-on-crime mission and sympathetic supporters – the families of fallen police officers – it could have the ingredients to score with voters. Still, backers of a ballot measure to limit the constitutional right to bail are taking no chances, planning for a traditional campaign of fundraising and endorsements, speeches and signs.
Gov. Chris Gregoire on Friday signed a measure meant to make ballots less confusing to voters. Under the measure that was unanimously passed by both the House and Senate, ballots will have to be clearly marked to show where ballot instructions end and the spot to vote begins. The bill was sparked by confusion in King County over a cluttered ballot design that officials say caused about 40,000 voters to skip over Tim Eyman’s Initiative 1033 in the November election.
A Whatcom County judge said the wording of a local transit tax ballot measure is inaccurate, but there’s nothing he can do about it. The ballot measure asks voters if bus service should be “maintained and improved” with a two-tenths of a percent sales tax increase for the Whatcom Transportation Authority. Tax opponent Brett Bonner said that’s wrong.
An effort by two Tacoma residents to put a streetcar system up to a public vote could be doomed before it builds very much steam. Last month, Committee to Build the Streetcar submitted a citizen petition to the city of Tacoma. Written by long-time streetcar advocates Chris Karnes and Morgan Alexander, the petition calls for funding to come from something called a transportation benefit district. For every $10 spent in this district, .2 cents of sales tax would go to constructing and operating the system.
The long debate over whether Port Angeles residents should be able to vote on fluoride in their drinking water — an additive first used in 2006 — is being decided by the state Supreme Court. The justices, meeting last week in Skagit County, heard arguments for and against two 2006 petitions filed to put the question on the ballot. Saying that the City Council decision was administrative rather than legislative in nature, the council spurned the petitions, prompting fluoride opponents’ court actions.
The U.S. Supreme Court has set April 28 as the date it will hear arguments over whether those who sign petitions for ballot measures can keep their identities confidential — a case stemming from the Referendum 71 battle last year. The High Court had decided in January to hear the case — referred to as Doe v. Reed. At issue is whether signing a ballot petition is a form of political speech protected by the First Amendment. And if so, whether a portion of the state’s Public Records Act violates the signers’ First Amendment rights.
To borrow a golfing term, it was a mulligan vote. Senate Democrats voted a second time this week to suspend Initiative 960 - the 2/3rds requirement for tax hikes. Their first bill only partially suspended the voter-approved law. That meant any tax increases Democrats pass later this session would be subject to an advisory vote on the November ballot. So Democrats came back a day later to put the entire initiative on ice until July 2011. Republican Don Benton lashed out at Democrats accusing them of using the cover of darkness to thwart the will of the voters.
A college student in the state of Washington may have found a way to get youth to vote. A Washington State University junior is looking to get a measure on the ballot to lower the drinking age in the state from 21 to 19. I would imagine it won’t be too hard for him to get signatures at colleges around the state.
A Moxee man is proposing to lower the drinking age in the state to 19 from 21. In an affidavit for a proposed initiative filed Wednesday, Dustin Reischman asks the Washington secretary of state to assign the initiative a number and submit it to the attorney general for a ballot title. Reischman, a 22-year-old junior at Washington State University, said he began researching the topic last semester as an independent study project. He concluded that many college students drink illegally, which leads to binge drinking and other irresponsible behaviors.
“Spite, codified.” That was what Seattle Times columnist Bruce Ramsey recently called six bills in the Washington state legislature that aim to restrict the initiative process. All the bills would severely hamper Washingtonians’ Â constitutionally guaranteed right to put state laws on the ballot through petitioning. Ramsey says all the bills are sponsored by bitter legislators who want to take a slap at perennial initiative sponsor Tim Eyman.
Undaunted by a string of past failures, a group of Washington residents will try for the fifth straight year to collect signatures for an initiative that would make Washington less attractive to illegal immigrants. The measure, I-1056, would require all employers ”” public and private ”” to use a free federal employment-verification system, E-Verify, to weed out those ineligible to work legally in the U.S.
The case in Washington state over whether or not the names and information of petition signers can be released to the public will be taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court. The announcement came today and will finally resolve the issue after much debate over the last few months.
We’re at the Washington Street Boat Launch south of Colman Dock, where the mayor has just finished a news conference announcing he will ask Seattle voters in May to approve a property tax measure raising $241 million to replace the seawall, regardless of what happens with The Viaduct. He says current plans call for replacing the seawall in six years, and that’s too long – he wants it done in four.