A Washington Senate Committee voted Friday along party lines to advance a bill that would make it harder to put citizen initiatives on the ballot.
To get an initiative on the ballot, sponsors have to collect signatures, and they can pay people based on how many signatures they get.
Sen. Javier Valdez’s (D-Seattle) bill would change that, requiring signature gatherers to be paid by the hour.
"Our state's current pay-per-signature practice incentivizes paid signature gatherers to use aggressive, misleading tactics," Valdez said. "It also enables wealthy interests to buy their way on the ballots.”
Some Democrats say per-signature payment encourages fraud.
The bill would also require an initiative sponsor gather 1,000 signatures before filing the ballot measure with the Sec. of State's office. The version of the bill passed out of committee contains one change, however. Before the vote, lawmakers cut the requirement for 1,000 signatures for referendums, which send bills approved by the Legislature to the ballot.
Republicans oppose the measure, and so did Democratic Sec. of State Steve Hobbs during a committee hearing Wednesday.
"I’m asking you to not move this forward," Hobbs told the Senate State Government, Tribal Affairs and Elections Committee. "But I am willing to work with you, Mr. Chair, to kind of tackle this fraudulent signature with more money from my office.”
Former Republican Sec. of State Sam Reed had stronger words for the committee.
"Pardon, Mr. Chair, for saying it, but it's a voter suppression bill," Reed said. "It is an attempt to make it even more difficult for citizens to participate in their government process."
Bill supporters like labor organizer Zach Nelson, however, say the current payment paradigm needs reexamining.
"A per-signature pay structure incentivizes signature gatherers to put themselves in a harm's way," he told the committee. "At a Fred Meyer in Tacoma, I witnessed this first hand where a signature gather spent eight hours visibly ill in freezing weather collecting signatures and misrepresenting the facts of the initiative to people walking in.
"The pay-per-signature structure rewards speed over accuracy and discourages the worker from going into detail about what someone is signing."
The bill now heads to the full Senate for consideration, as a companion bill sponsored by Rep. Sharlett Mena (D-Tacoma) moves through the House.
Washington passed a similar bill to ban per-signature payment in 1993 but a federal court struck it down as an unconstitutional limit on political speech.
