A bill heard in state House and Senate committees this year is a classic case of a solution in search of a problem. Democratic lawmakers have proposed regulating how initiative signature-gatherers get paid, among other new requirements. Signature fraud, they say, is the basis for interfering with the people’s exercise of direct democracy.
Only there is little to no fraud occurring, according to two people who would know. Both Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, a Democrat, and Republican Sam Reed, who previously held Hobbs’ job for three terms, testified that the state’s signature verification system is robust and effective. As custodians of the state’s elections, past and present, the two told the committees the system works.
That should be assurance enough. SB 5973, sponsored by State Sen. Javier Valdez, D-Seattle, is unnecessary and creates unwise barriers to an initiative process Washingtonians have supported for more than a century. Democrats in Olympia should stop trying to meddle in it.
In the U.S., direct democracy is in contraction. Last year, The Associated Press found about 40 bills in legislatures across the country that proposed changing or restricting the initiative process. Most often, the restrictions were in Republican-controlled states where activists pursued signatures for progressive measures, such as defending abortion rights. The party dynamic may be different in those states, but Democrats here are resorting to the same tactics.
In a practical sense, the bill would ban initiative workers from being paid by the signature. Some proponents of that prohibition argue only the rich and powerful can run initiatives. Yet when California Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a similar bill in California in 2018, he noted banning pay-by-signature would “drive up the cost of circulating ballot measures, thereby further favoring the wealthiest interests.” So much for getting money out of politics.
The bill also calls for initiative petitioners to gather 1,000 signatures before even qualifying as a campaign to go on to garner the rest. Hobbs noted the simple act of raising the filing fee to $156 has slowed initiative filings from 346 in 2020 to 47 this year. Creating another hoop to jump through means Hobbs’ office will have to vet those signatures first, which is “going to slow (the initiative process) way, way down,” he testified.
If lawmakers were sincere in their efforts to eliminate fraud, they could raise the penalties for committing it to provide a further deterrent, as Hobbs has suggested.
Washington state’s Democrats should recognize that by attempting to clamp down on the initiative process, they are taking the same page out of a playbook majority Republicans are using in states where Democrats are in the minority. Suppressing the voices of people whom the majority may disagree with is antipolitical — and equally wrong, no matter the party that’s doing it.
