The Senate Government Operations & Elections Committee holds a "public hearing" at 1:30pm today on several bills designed to cripple the people's Constitutional right to initiative:
SB 5181 - Requiring signature gatherers to wear identification.Most members of the public whose rights these bills aim to vaporize are too busy working to attend the hearing. But Tim Eyman, whom the anti-citizen coup-plotters in the permanent government love to hate, will be there. Watch live on TVW. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at January 30, 2007 11:44 AM | Email This
SB 5182 - Requiring signature gatherers to sign initiative and referendum petitions.
SB 5356 - Prohibiting payment of petition signature gatherers on a per-signature basis.
SB 5392 - Increasing the initiative filing fee.
SB 5418 - Requiring ballot titles to indicate tax consequences of the ballot measure.
SJR 8205 - Relating to the constitutional provisions regarding initiatives and referendums.
The other bills are intended to stifle the ability of the people to TRY to get an initiative or referendum on the ballot - which is NO guarantee that it would even be approved into law.
Along with the courts allowing carte blanche for the emergency clause, the referendum and intiative rights IN THE CONSTITUTION are slowly, but surely, being restricted to where ONLY the legislature will have the final say in our government.
Posted by: SouthernRoots on January 30, 2007 12:01 PMThe Democrats in the legislature, in order to protect the democratic process, are going to require ID to gather signatures (why not require signers to show ID before they sign); yet at the same time, they don't want to require voters to show ID when the vote.
Perhaps it is time to start treting petitions with the same sense of seriousness that prevails at say the King County Election Board, in regards to voter registration and signature verification.
toodles
pyotr
One thing is for sure, Sen. Kline's cheap shots on Eyman were unnecessary and ridiculous. He should be embarrassed by his comments.
Posted by: Joe on January 30, 2007 02:37 PMThrow the bums out.
Posted by: Palouse on January 30, 2007 04:10 PMShort of protesting this quasi-Marxist movement by the Democrats in Olympia, it will take nothing short of a miracle to stop this kind of horse-bleep from happening - some of the above bills will probably be passed. Hopefully, these assinine laws will be repealed after 2008, when there is a new Republican Governor.
Posted by: KS on January 30, 2007 04:18 PMas for my US Tennis shoe Senator, her 3 identical repsonses to my 1 question were all canned & totally off topic. at least Inslee added on-point response items & (presumably) read it.
now i know how the populace felt in the old Soviets. shrug shoulders & hang in there.
Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on January 30, 2007 07:45 PM.... with perhaps the 1 exception IMO of SB5392:
Increase the filing fee to $100 (I would have said $50, but $100 is tolerable).
SIDEBAR: Note that (R) Senator Swecker co-sponsored this bill.
Those who may have seen prior posts by me on the subject of initiatives may wonder why I as a very active participant in that process for most of 5 years would agree to INCREASE the filing fee from the current $5 to $100:
Easy:
To weed out total flakes who have in the past (forget if it was 2003 or 2004) filed DOZENS of totally specious initiatives. IIRC one of those years ONE radical Seattle leftie filed FORTY or more totally absurd and ridiculous initiatives with the SOS. That clutters up the process for everybody; and especially results in delays for serious efforts (since everything is pretty much done first-come, first-served all along the line).
And having personnally gone thru the entire draft - file_with_SOS - code_revisor - AG - SOS drill a couple times in person, there is no doubt that the total processing of each initiative filing takes a lot of hours by working-level SOS, Code Revisor, and AG staff (who were always courteous and helpful to me, BTW (special kudos to the people at the Code Revisor's Office: One of the best professional organizations around the Capitol campus that I have ever dealt with) ).
SUMMARY: If you can't raise $100 to file, you ain't serious. It's worth going to $100 to weed out the flakes who walk in and try to file 40 initiatives for $200.
Dear Mr. Kuehn
The secretary of state has many examples. Also check the newspaper
archives and you will see stories about, for example Eyman's last effort
that failed to get enough because of the high number of fraudulent
signatures.
I have gathered many signatures, as a volunteer. I love the process. The
issue is the behavior I have seen with paid signature gathers.
I have been advised that the bill is constructional.
No need to do the "Honorable" stuff.
Hans
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Kuehn [mailto:chriskuehn@comcast.net]
Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 7:35 PM
To: Dunshee, Rep. Hans
Subject: Re: Possible NC: Please respond to my previous email
Honorable Mr. Dunshee,
In my original inquiry I was hoping that you could provide me with
instances
of signature fraud. According to the SOS office there have been NO
documented cases of fraud. It seems reasonable that since we are relying
on
signature verification for voting, we should be able to rely on it for
this
process and let the initiative sponsor assume the risk of not getting
valid
signatures for their money.
Why is this bill necessary? Is this simply to retrict the right of
political
speech that the legislature does not want to hear?
Futhermore similar laws have been struck down repeatedly as
unconstitutional. How is this bill different? My impression is that this
bill, if it becomes law, would allow only big money organizations such
as
public employee unions and personal-injury lawyers to put forth
initiatives
because they can afford the increased costs associated with your
restrictions.
I urge you to withdraw your support for this unconstitutional and
unreasonable bill.
Thank you for your response.
Sincerely,
Chris Kuehn
I believe that no amount of reasoning will prevent these from passing and becoming law. They will not be overturned by our judges and we will see the final nail pounded into the coffin of free speech in this state.
Next, it's gun laws they'll go after. As soon as my daughter is in college, I'm moving out of state.
Washington state = lost cause!
Posted by: Jeffro on January 31, 2007 07:59 AMAnd guess who has a wallet sized photo of himself other than the I-man. I agree with the Dems when the word "initiative" means the same thing as the I-man.
Hey, I-man, we are talking about the citizen's right, not yours alone. Sit back and chill for crying out loud. It shouldn't be all about you. Let some real people get some press.
Posted by: swatter on January 31, 2007 09:33 AMolympia & your local elec-teds are banking on your being a worker and choosing to earn some $ and not be a full time lobbyist among your other family/personal responsibilities. that's the problem. "who will bell the cat?" as the fable goes.
they know you delegated power to them like tossing a teen the car keys--and--you probably wont watch the curfew too closely either.
the more burrs in their saddles the better. but--it's truly scary to see that LONG list of anti-initiative attempts. they really want to hamstring us. pretty obvious--the level of contempt for the common citizen. and--the pandering to non-citizens at the same time for a double-whammy.
Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on February 1, 2007 09:02 PMA number of the voters who get behind and vote for these buffoons would have been locked up in Mental Institutions as well, if they were still in existence like they were before the 1980. Just go back and look at how people in this region voted prior to 1980 and you will see that there has been a serious deterioration in the caliber of those who are elected.
Posted by: KS on February 2, 2007 10:19 PM