OLYMPIA, Aug. 29.—A flurry of court filings regarding the city of SeaTac’s $15-an-hour minimum-wage initiative mark the start of a new court battle that will determine whether the precedent-setting ballot measure will go to voters in November.
Thrown out by a King County Superior Court judge earlier this week, the initiative now is the subject of an intense legal battle that must play out within the next 10 days. Parties in the case appear agreed that election deadlines require an answer for King County elections officials by Sept. 6. Judge Andrea Darvas has agreed to hold a hearing next Tuesday on a lawsuit and a new motion filed by advocates of the measure. Backers also say they will go to the state Court of Appeals. That raises the possibility of a stay that ultimately could mean voters in the city will have their say Nov. 5.
The labor-backed initiative provides the first real test of a national drive for a $15-an-hour minimum wage – more than twice the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, and 63 percent higher than the Washington-state minimum wage of $9.19 an hour, currently the highest state minimum wage in the country. While the $15 wage is the subject of rallies and demonstrations nationwide, including protests in front of fast-food restaurants across the country today, and the issue looms large in local elections in progressive-leaning cities like Seattle, the SeaTac ballot measure is the first of its kind – and could actually force a decision. The measure would apply to businesses at the busy terminal as well as those beyond the boundary that cater to the airport trade – hotels, parking lots and rental-car companies. It also would require paid sick leave and impose a number of workplace rules that buttress union organizing efforts.
A campaign backed by Working Washington, an organizing arm of the Service Employees International Union, turned in 2,506 signatures in June, but an unusually large number were thrown out by routine signature checks at the King County Elections Department and by the city’s own Petition Review Board. At issue is a final batch of 61 signatures – and a curious state law that says when a registered voter signs a petition more than once, none of the signatures may be counted. The law applies only to municipal initiatives. For statewide initiatives, a different law says the first signature must be counted. Already in a case earlier this year concerning a Vancouver municipal light-rail initiative, a Cowlitz County judge ruled that the law is unconstitutional. But in King County, Darvas ruled that the signatures had to be thrown out – leaving the measure just short of the 1,536 required to make the ballot.
Don’t count it out, says SeaTac Good Jobs Initiative spokeswoman Heather Weiner. “We feel pretty confident we are going to prevail in one of these things.”
A Lawsuit and a Motion
Judge Darvas ruled Monday in a lawsuit brought by Alaska Airlines, the Washington Restaurant Association and an airport concessionaire that the city could not ignore the state law requiring that the duplicate signatures be thrown out. Because that put the initiative below the threshold, she ordered the city to withdraw the “certificate of sufficiency” that had been issued and told King County to strike the measure from the ballot. But the whole issue becomes rather murky because a city ordinance says that when an initiative falls short, proponents have 10 days to gather additional signatures. Already proponents have submitted 248 additional signatures. But city officials say they don’t think the rule applies this late in the process, and especially after a court decision declares the initiative dead. They won’t process the signatures without a court order. King County elections officials, meanwhile, maintain that the deadline for a ballot referral was Aug. 6 – and now that it has been stricken from the ballot, it cannot be re-referred without a court order.
Advocates filed a suit Wednesday against the King County Elections Department and the city of SeaTac aimed at keeping the initiative on the ballot. Filed on behalf of P.J. Seidenstrecker, owner of a pet-boarding business, and Brian White, one of those whose signatures was disqualified, the suit contends the city’s Petition Review Board illegally threw out 201 signatures. It says that when King County’s original signature-check was completed, it left standing some 1,780 signatures – and when it issued a “certificate of sufficiency,” that should have been the end of the argument.
In a separate motion in the Alaska Airlines case, the campaign argues that the city of SeaTac should be required to consider the additional 248 signatures that were submitted.
The possible appeal remains a wild card. One question is the effect of the Cowlitz County ruling earlier this year. In that case, the judge ruled the state law is unconstitutional because it disenfranchises voters, a decision endorsed by the Clark County auditor’s office. The decision never was appealed; the state attorney general’s office allowed it to remain in place. Though the decision was left unpublished because it never went to the Court of Appeals, some argue that the effect of the ruling is that the law no longer stands.
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