(The Center Square) – On Monday, two top election officials – one current, one former – came out against a bill calling for greater scrutiny of those circulating and signing initiative petitions during a public hearing before the Senate Ways & Means Committee.
Senate Bill 5382, dubbed the “initiative killer” by critics, would require those gathering signatures for referendum and initiative petitions to sign declarations stating that the information given is accurate. They would also have to vow that signers didn’t get paid.
Secretary of State Steven Hobbs, a Democrat, testified against the bill.
“This bill is not needed, and it’s just trying to fix a problem that doesn’t really exist,” he told the committee. “Lawsuits will happen. Maybe you have a senior citizen that forgot their address and put a PO Box, it would invalidate them as well.”
Sam Reed, a Republican who served as secretary of state from 2001 to 2013, also spoke against SB 5382.
“This is part of our political culture,” he told the committee. “This is part of our legacy. To start messing around and saying we’re going to try and suppress the right of people to participate if they don’t put in the right address – this is wrong. We’re better than this here in the state of Washington.”
Anti-tax activist Tim Eyman chimed in as well against the bill.
“Not once has an invalid signature ever been counted,” Eyman told The Center Square Monday. “They disallow signatures that don’t match and it’s hugely encouraging to have the support of the secretary of state on this.”
Majority party Democrats backing the bill say its basic reforms are all about voter integrity.
“You would actually match up the signature with the address of a registered vote,” Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, explained during a media availability event last week. “Wow, that does not seem like a big leap.
Eyman told The Center Square that over the last quarter century in Washington, there have been nearly as many successful initiatives backed by Democrats as there have been initiatives backed by Republicans.
“Over the last 25 years, voters of this state have approved 21 liberal initiatives and 23 conservative initiatives, so it’s clear that both sides use the initiative process, and both sides are going to lose the process if this bill passes,” he said.
Republicans suggested that Democrats backing the bill are trying to remove one of the only ways the minority electorate has for checks and balances in politically deep-blue Washington.
Six citizen-led initiatives to the Legislature were certified last year. Lawmakers adopted three of those initiatives, while voters did not pass the remaining three in November. An initiative to ensure natural gas as an energy choice qualified after the 2024 legislative session and was approved by voters that fall.
