Article by Erik Smith. Published on Saturday, July 09, 2011 EST.

All Three Turn in Ample Petitions on Deadline Day – More Than a Million Signatures at State Elections Office

Elections workers sort petitions Friday at the state elections office.

By Erik Smith

Staff writer/ Washington State Wire

OLYMPIA, July 9.—This year’s ballot-measure line-up in Washington state firmed up Friday when three campaigns turned in more than 1 million signatures.
            Friday was the deadline for initiative campaigns to turn in signatures for the fall ballot, and all three of this year’s biggies beat the minimum requirement by a huge margin, meaning that voters can pretty well be assured of seeing measures to privatize the sale of liquor, restrict highway tolls, and reinstate a union-backed training program for home health care workers.
            It was a busy day at the state elections office, as trucks backed up to the entrance carrying boxes of petitions. Backers and opponents made their cases to reporters. Workers in a back office began sorting petitions and prepared for the usual random checks to determine the validity of signatures. But each of the campaigns had turned in enough names to ensure a comfortable safety margin, so the laborious process this time around is largely a formality.

            Meanwhile, a fourth initiative didn’t make it – a measure that aimed to legalize marijuana in the state of Washington. Organizers admitted they failed to gather the required 241,153 signatures and so they didn’t bother showing up at the elections office at the appointed time Friday afternoon. But the issue isn’t dead. Another legalization campaign, this one promising better organization, has launched a campaign that will collect signatures through the end of the year and submit the measure to the Legislature, rather than to the voters.

            Liquor Measure Sets a Record

            Faster than any other initiative in state history, backers of a liquor privatization initiative managed to collect all the signatures they needed to make the ballot. A beaming Bruce Beckett of the Washington Restaurant Association said, “See? I told you we could do it.”

Initiative 1183 managed to gather 354,398 signatures in just 21 days, beating last year’s record of 29 days, set by the soda-pop industry for its successful tax-rollback measure, I-1107. It is worth noting that both signature drives were managed by the same consulting firm, Winner & Mandabach of Santa Monica, Calif. It’s also worth noting that last year’s signature drive also set a record for cost – some $2.5 million. We won’t know whether that record was topped until the final billings show up in the August 10 state campaign-finance reports.

There was at least some element of grass-roots support on this one. Costco Wholesale, the leading individual backer of the initiative, collected some 150,000 signatures from customers in its own stores. Beckett said many more were gathered in taverns, bars and restaurants. So it wasn’t as if the entire job was done by canvassers who were paid by the signature. “I think there was clear voter interest in the issue and a tremendous grass roots and volunteer effort,” he said.

            The measure, also backed by a coalition of grocery and retail associations, is a repeat and a major refinement of last year’s Initiative 1100, which failed by a slim 53-47 margin. Like last November’s measure, this one would shutter the state liquor stores and would allow booze sales in supermarkets and big-box stores. It also would make Washington the first state to allow retailers to deal directly with liquor producers, eliminating the protected position that distributors now enjoy in the marketplace.

            But there are significant differences between this proposal and last year’s measure. For most communities it would allow booze sales only at stores of more than 10,000 square feet, cutting out convenience stores and gas stations and eliminating last year’s arguments about drunk teens on the highways. State and local governments would be given a cut of sales, meaning no loss in revenue. And it doesn’t touch beer distributors, meaning they have less reason to spend millions to defeat the measure, as they did last year.

            Opposition can be expected from the same quarters, however – labor unions and the distribution business – because it challenges the system under which booze has been sold in this state since the end of prohibition. 

            Toll Measure Sets Up Transportation Debate

            A measure restricting highway tolls sets up a debate over the way tolls will be used in future highway construction projects. I-1125, sponsored by Tim Eyman with substantial financial backing from Bellevue businessman Kemper Freeman, would prohibit comprehensive road-system tolling as is contemplated in the Seattle area as the Highway 520 bridge project is launched. The measure would block a plan to toll the I-90 bridge to help pay for it, by requiring that money be spent on the project where it is collected.

            It’s a major issue in the Seattle area and in the state’s transportation circles. System-wide tolling, as opposed to tolls on individual projects, is seen as a way to pay for major new projects at a time of declining per capita gas-tax revenue. The measure also would prohibit variable-rate tolling that is designed to discourage traffic during rush hours. 

            Eyman says it’s wrong to charge tolls on projects that were paid for years ago, and it’s a dangerous temptation for elected officials. “The only way we can keep tolls at a reasonable rate and not force the taxpayers to fill in any gaps is to actually make sure that the money generated by a project actually stays with the project, and that we do not allow elected officials to steal the money and spend it someplace else,” he said.

            An opposition coalition of transportation, corporate and labor interests is being formed to fight the measure, said former transportation secretary Doug McDonald, and the opening salvo will probably come next week.

             “We need transportation, we have to find a way to pay for it or it will fall apart and all of our growth, all of our hopes for economic recovery, are going to stall,” he said. “If you take the sorts of solutions that Tim wants to take us back to, the way tolls were done in the 1950s, we cannot do for our people and our transportation system what we need to do to keep it moving into the future.”

            The initiative also would require toll decisions to be made by the Legislature, rather than the unelected Transportation Commission, block transit lanes on the I-90 bridge, and restate principles embodied in the 18^th Amendment to the state Constitution, which restricts the use of gas-tax money. Eyman and his supporters turned in 327,043 signatures.

            SEIU Measure Costs $55 Million
 

            The Service Employees International Union is back again with a repeat of an initiative voters passed in 2008. Looks like I-1163 has the same problem the original one did. There’s no money to pay for it. Which explains why the Legislature has never gotten around to paying for the original I-1029.

            It’s a big tab. The measure would require criminal background checks for every home-care worker in the state, and would mandate a two-week training program and a state testing and certification process. For the 40,000 or so home care workers on the state payroll, the cost to taxpayers would be $55 million for the first two years – $30 million from the state and $25 million from the feds. Private workers and agencies would be on their own, and they would have to pay the bill themselves. They say they’d be at a disadvantage. They figure that’s part of the plan.

            Voters passed the 2008 measure by a whopping margin, 73 percent, the biggest yes vote on an initiative in state history. But the union’s unfunded mandate came at exactly the wrong time. Wall Street had just laid its egg, the state budget collapsed, and lawmakers have been suspending the rules ever since.

            SEIU collected 340,497 signatures to put the matter before voters and the Legislature again. And once more, it opted not to raise a tax, create a new one, or close an existing tax loophole.

            “It’s the Legislature’s job to make those decisions,” said Sandeep Kaushik, spokesman for the I-1163 campaign. “We wanted to focus on the policy issues that we think are basic and critically important.”

            Lawmakers might beg to differ about those job responsibilities. Many call unfunded mandates irresponsible. But by not including a funding source and leaving the problem for the Legislature, the initiative doesn’t specifically target anyone, and so a potential source of political opposition is eliminated.

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