Last week’s deadline has passed and six initiative campaigns turned in petitions to qualify for the November ballot. Meanwhile, a number of lower-profile proposals failed to turn in any signatures.
A high-profile initiative to legalize marijuana, which didn’t rely on paid signature gatherers, did not turn in petitions.
Indeed, all the campaigns that turned in signatures used paid signature gatherers—more fodder for the case that Washington state’s initiative system has strayed from its populist origins.
Here’s what the non-corporate initiative campaigns had on their minds. Along with the pot initiative, a long list of other proposals failed to turn in any signatures, including a batch of Tea Party agenda items that would have: blocked the federal health care reform law; prohibited any income tax legislation (and automatically triggered a recall effort on any legislator who voted to overturn the initiative); empowered local sheriffs to overrule federal employees; prevented taxes on greenhouse gas polluters; and made state and local agencies enforce federal immigration laws and mandate that drivers licenses and public assistance only go to U.S. citizens.
Some lefty initiatives also flopped. Among them: preventing discrimination against gays in “the Washington State Military Department” and setting up safeguards against bank foreclosures.
A straight populist initiative—lowering the signature requirement for candidates who lack the filing fee—also failed.
There were also a few oddities—a measure to prohibit possessing or using martial arts weapons in schools, including universities and colleges, and one that would repeal all laws adopted in 2010.
And finally, there was I-1069, which probably falls under the Tea Party banner, (we have a call out to the sponsor), which gets this year’s award for the most oddball initiative proposal of all:
This measure would require the Seal of the State of Washington to be changed to depict a vignette of a tapeworm dressed in a three piece suit attached to the lower intestine of a taxpayer shown as the central figure. The seal would be required to be encircled with the following words: “Committed to sucking the life blood out of each and every tax payer.” The illustration would be selected from submissions submitted by taxpayers.
Measures that did turn in signatures included: I-1053, a measure backed by Tim Eyman and the Association of Washington Business that would mandate a two-thirds majority vote of the legislature to raise taxes; 1082, an insurance industry and Building Industry Association of Washington initiative to privatize workers’ comp; I-1098, a measure backed by labor and Bill Gates, Sr. that would institute a high-earners income tax; I-1100 and I-1105, competing initiatives (the former paid for by Costco) to privatize liquor sales; and 1107, a Beverage Association of America measure to repeal the temporary sales tax increases on soda, gum, candy, and bottled water.
