Washington
Date initiative language can be submitted: Initiatives to the people must be filed within 10 months prior to the next state general election, and the petitions (signatures) must be filed not less than 4 months before such general election. Initiatives to the
Legislature must be filed within 10 months prior to the next regular session
of the Legislature, and the petitions (signatures) must be filed not less than
10 days before such regular session of the Legislature.
Signatures are tied to vote of which office: Governor
A patriotic outfit associated with the opposition People’s Party (SLS) is determined to submit 2,500 voter signatures necessary to start procedure for a referendum on Croatia’s accession to NATO on Monday. .. (READ MORE)
An initiative to boost training for long-term health care workers has been put back on the ballot by the Washington State Supreme Court.
The initiative is sponsored by the nation’s largest union, the Service Employees International Union, as part of a strategy of organizing such health care aides. The idea is that by requiring training and imposing other regulation of such aides, the union can leverage government influence to convince such aides to join the union.
Fresh from a court victory Thursday, initiatives guru Tim Eyman predicted defeat in November for a ballot proposal he opposes that would make it harder to amend the King County charter by initiative.
“They just put a stake in the heart of this thing,” Eyman said. “There’s no way the voters will vote for this now.”
The group trying to rid Lakewood of minicasinos appears to have collected enough signatures to put its initiative on the ballot.
City voters would make the final decision as part of the busy general election in November.
City Manager Andrew Neiditz told the Lakewood City Council Monday night that he spoke with Pierce County Auditor Pat McCarthy’s office earlier in the day. The county said that after an initial count of all signatures gathered in the city’s first-ever citizen initiative campaign, 3,904 are valid.
Oregonians legalized assisted suicide a decade ago. Now, Washington may be the second state in the country to allow terminal patients to expedite their death.
“I suppose if they made you a zombie, that they could take away all your humanity in order to relieve you of pain, put you in a coma practically,” said Ginger Vetrano, who gathered signatures around the Tri-Cities to put the initiative on the ballot.
Washington voters will find themselves at the center of a national right-to-die debate this year if Initiative 1000, modeled on Oregon’s Death With Dignity law, makes it onto the November ballot.
The campaign turned in nearly 320,000 signatures July 2, far more than the 225,000 valid signatures it needs to qualify.
Opponents of the Service Employees International Union’s long-term care initiative plan to file a lawsuit to keep the measure off the ballot.
That’s according to a story by The Olympian’s Brad Shannon, which you can find here.
Backers for the measure, which would boost training and set certification standards for long-term care workers, turned in signatures for the initiative to the people on petitions designed for initiatives to the Legislature.
Port of Seattle Commissioner Pat Davis’ defense against a recall petition in front of the state Supreme Court may hinge on a technicality.
K&L Gates partner Suzanne Thomas told the court that Davis’ signature on an Oct. 10, 2006, memo to former port Chief Executive Mic Dinsmore, extending his salary for up to one year after he retired, “was not based on a gift of funds but rather a transition process to keep Dinsmore in office until a successor was found.”
Jack Fagan, Tim Eyman, Mike FaganIt appears increasingly likely that Washington state voters will have a chance to approve an anti-congestion initiative on the November ballot. Initiative 985 would remove profit from red light cameras, synchronize traffic lights and create a fund devoted to reducing congestion. Later today, activists representing the group Voters Want More Choices are planning planning to hand the Secretary of State’s office more than 226,000 signatures — exceeding the minimum required to certify the measure for the upcoming election.
There isn’t much John Peyton can do on his own except speak, and soon he’ll lose even that.
The former Boeing computer programmer has Lou Gehrig’s disease, which progressively paralyzes its victims. His doctor gives him three to six months to live.
He is using his last months to oppose a ballot initiative that would allow physicians in Washington state to help terminally ill patients end their lives. Only Oregon has such a law.
“What we’re really doing I believe, is attempting to eliminate the sufferer so we don’t have to deal with them,” Peyton said.
NorthernStar Natural Gas is trying to block an effort to give voters a say in Clatsop County’s approval of its proposed Columbia River liquefied natural gas terminal.
The Houston company sought an injunction Tuesday in Clatsop County Circuit Court to stop a referendum from reaching the September ballot.
NorthernStar said it will argue that land-use decisions are not beholden to the referendum process and that the ballot measure is therefore illegal.
Voters will have another chance to decide whether they like district-only voting after Whatcom County Council members Tuesday night approved a ballot measure for the 2008 general election.
Voters rejected the roads-and-transit proposal on the Nov. 6 ballot because they feared the package was too big and too expensive — even though they weren’t clear about just how much it would cost, according to a post-election survey released Wednesday.
The basics of the case were pretty straightforward.
All nine justices of the state Supreme Court ruled last week that the Legislature acted legally in 2005 when it adopted a budget plan that exceeded spending limits contained in a 1993 citizen-passed initiative.