The Seattle Times
A voter initiative seeking to end the state monopoly on workers’ compensation could be headed for the November ballot. Sponsors of Initiative 1082 have turned in their signed petitions with state elections officials. The campaign says it has about 340,000 signatures. That’s well above the roughly 241,000 required get on the ballot. I-1082 is sponsored by the Building Industry Association of Washington, a construction trade group that’s very active in conservative politics.
A campaign seeking to end the state’s monopoly on hard liquor is one step closer to the ballot. Initiative 1100 supporters say they turned in petitions with more than 390,000 signatures on Wednesday. The state requires about 241,000 valid voter signatures to make it on the November ballot. I-1100 would allow stores that sell beer and wine to also sell hard liquor. It also would eliminate state price controls and allow volume discounts. In addition, retailers could buy liquor directly from manufacturers. Costco has been a major supporter.
The names and addresses of those who sign ballot-measure petitions, such as Referendum 71, can be made public, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today in a decision that upholds the constitutionality of Washington state’s Public Records Act. But that doesn’t mean copies of the Ref. 71 petitions will be immediately available. A lower court will now take up the question of whether those petitions can be disclosed at all, since those who want to keep petition signers’ names secret plan to pursue an exemption from disclosure in their case only.
Initiative sponsor Tim Eyman will have to collect more signatures on a measure opposing red light cameras in Mukilteo, his home town. The initiative needs about 1,800 valid signatures. Eyman turned in about 1,900. But the Snohomish County auditor’s office found about 400 names were invalid.
Lorie Graff married her American husband at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., in the late 1950s, before returning to Canada to apply for a green card so she could live in the U.S. legally. In the 1990s, Tiarani Samsi was able to finally follow her husband to the U.S. from Indonesia, after waiting three years for the legal papers.
Washington voters could decide on the November ballot whether to establish a state income tax on wealthy residents. Bill Gates Sr. was scheduled to headline an event Wednesday in Seattle where community leaders would announce their intentions about pursuing an income tax ballot measure. Gates is the father of the Microsoft founder and a longtime supporter of tax overhaul.
Unable to win in the Legislature, the state building industry is launching a ballot campaign to bring private insurers into Washington’s state-run workers’ compensation system for the first time. The Democratic-controlled Legislature flatly rejected several business groups’ proposals to change the system during the just-concluded legislative session. The Initiative 1082 effort sets up a ballot-box fight with the state’s influential labor interests in an election year for most legislative seats.
The state Legislature is asking voters to support energy-efficiency renovations at schools around the state. The measure sends about $500 million in bonds to the November ballot. The House gave final legislative approval to the bill on a a 59-38 vote Monday night.
A broad coalition of business, labor, education and seniors today launched an effort to defeat Tim Eyman’s latest ballot measure, Initiative 1033. “1033 is bad for jobs and it would greatly diminish access to health care,” said Doug Shadel, state director of AARP. The initiative, on November’s ballot, would cap the yearly growth of state, county and city general funds at the rate of inflation, plus population growth. Any revenue above the cap would be used to lower property taxes. Voters could approve revenue increases above the cap.
A federal judge in Tacoma may decide Thursday whether the public can see the names of people who signed Referendum 71. That’s the measure on the November ballot that could roll back expanded rights for domestic partners. Gay rights activists plan to post the names online, encouraging supporters of same-sex unions to discuss the issue with anyone they may recognize.
For a month, rotating teams of gay-rights supporters and opponents have crowded into a basement room, watching as state workers check every signature on a referendum that seeks to overturn the latest expansion of gay rights. They have not become friends. In fact, they’ve had complaints. Religious conservatives with Protect Marriage Washington, the group trying to put Referendum 71 on the ballot, speak of a chumminess between elections workers and gay-rights supporters that excludes them.
A House appropriations committee gave its approval to a ballot measure that will raise the sales tax by about $486 million. Most of the funds generated will go to health care services with the rest going to tax credits. The bill must now go to the House floor for a vote. If passed by the legislature the measure would also have to be approved by voters.
OKLAHOMA CITY ””
A pair of Oklahoma lawmakers have received an award from a national voter rights group focused on the initiative and referendum process.
The Virginia-based Citizens in Charge Foundation on Tuesday named state Sen. Randy Brogdon and Rep. Randy Terrill as the March 2009 recipients of the John Lilburne Award….