Washington

Washington

The message to Washington state legislators couldn’t be clearer: hands off citizen initiative rights.

Seattle Times, May 3, 2011, “Initiative-Curbing Bill Unfair And Ineffective” –

Score one for anti-tax initiative king Tim Eyman, who had key provisions of a bill struck before it passed out of a Senate committee. Signature-gatherers circulating petitions to put initiatives and referenda on the ballot would not have to register with the Secretary of State’s office under a bill passed Friday by the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Read the story from The Columbian

On February 19, Judge David R. Thompson died at the age of 80. He was a semi-retired judge on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. He was based in San Diego. He had been appointed to the 9th circuit in 1985. In 2000 he wrote the decision that invalidated a Washington state law that required the names and addresses of paid circulators to be made public, by their employers, on a monthly basis. That case was called WIN v Rippie. His decision said,

The Attacks Continue

Mon, Feb 14 2011 by Staff

The state of Washington has an active state-wide initiative process, so naturally elected officials in the state want to do everything they can to put a stop to it:

Critics on Wednesday weighed in on a measure aimed at tightening regulations on signature-gathering, saying it would make it harder for grassroots initiatives to make the ballot and would target signature gatherers for harassment from opponents. The bill, proposed by Rep. Chris Reykdal, D-Tumwater, requires all signature-gathering businesses and paid signature gatherers to register with the Secretary of State. It also increases the fee for filing initiatives or referenda from $5 to $500, $450 of which would be refunded if the measure qualifies for the ballot.

Read the story from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Marijuana activists are trying once again to legalize the drug in Washington state through a ballot measure. A group has filed an initiative aimed at removing all criminal and civil state penalties for possession, use and sale of marijuana in any quantity.

Read the story from KGMI 790 AM

Opponents of red-light and school-zone enforcement cameras will fight City Hall’s plan to install the cameras through a voter initiative. But Mayor Dan Pike said he expects the cameras will be installed and activated before any ballot measure. The city won’t speed up or slow down implementation, and he’s not going to presume a measure would pass or fail, he said.

Read the story from The Bellingham Herald

State Sen. Sharon Nelson, D-West Seattle, is sponsoring a bill this session that would place new requirements on the ballot-initiative process aimed at reducing the chances of fraud in paid signature-gathering.

Read the story from The Seattle Times

It’s safe to say that pretty much everyone anywhere hates red-light cameras. So when government officials decide to put them up, how do citizens get them taken down? The initiative & referendum process:

The Yakima City Council held it’s first business meeting of the year Tuesday evening.  One of the most high profile issues they discussed was when the re-districting initiative would be up for vote.  They had the option of putting the issue on an April special election ballot, or let it be voted on in the August primary election. The civil rights group in favor of the redistricting wants the April date because if the measure passes, the redistricting would take place in time for the November general election…and all of the city council seats would be up for election.

Read the story from KNDO

Tuesday the Yakima City Council is expected to set a date for the vote on moving to district-only voting.  If passed, the initiative would break the city into seven different voting districts and each candidate for city council would have to live in the district they represent. Voters could only vote for their district’s council member.

Read the story from KNDO

Yakima is one step closer to changing the way it’s leaders are elected. As of Friday, over 500 signatures had been certified by the county auditor’s office.  Now the initiative is eligible to be on a ballot. If passed, Yakima would be divided into seven districts and city council members would have to live in the district they serve.

Read the story from KNDO

Battles of EymanEmployees of various agencies and interest groups appeared before the Washington state Senate Government Relations Committee last week to complain that spending on initiative campaigns had increased over the last ten years. They claim voters are being foolish and swayed by big money, and that more regulation and restriction of the process is needed. The attacks on citizen rights led at least one lawmaker present, Sen. Pam Roach, to point out that it was improper for the state’s Public Disclosure Commission to “vilify the system”.

The Washington Public Disclosure Commission did not find enough evidence of violation of state law to open an investigation of Vancouver Mayor Tim Leavitt and former Vancouver City Manager Pat McDonnell for their roles in drafting a city resolution against two liquor privatization initiatives on November’s ballot.

Read the story from The Columbian

After blogging yesterday about traffic enforcement cameras in Ohio, a reader pointed me to this excellent breakdown of red-light and speed camera votes around the country from TheNewspaper.com. According to the article, the cameras have never survived a public vote: they usually lose by margins of two-to-one.

Among the five additional communities to ban cameras is Houston, Texas - America’s fourth largest city: