R-71: Stay tuned for federal court decision on petitions
Should Washington officials be allowed to release Referendum 71 petition sheets? That touchy issue is in the hands of a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, Calif., following a hearing this morning.
Deputy Solicitor General Bill Collins, who represented the state, reported a very well-prepared panel and a “very lively” discussion of the issues. He said the court has taken the case under advisement without indicating when – or how – they will rule.
Since the appeals court has the case on a fast track and voting has actually begun in Washington, state election officials expect the court to issue an order pretty quickly, maybe even later today.
The question is whether petitions bearing the 138,000 signatures submitted by R-71 sponsors should be treated as a releasable public record, as Secretary of State Sam Reed and Attorney General Rob McKenna believe, or whether the records should be blocked from public view, as foes of the state’s new domestic partnership law argue.
R-71 sponsors, Protect Marriage Washington, won a federal court order in Tacoma last month blocking the scheduled release of the petitions. They argue that release would “chill” voter participation and possibly subject signers to harassment. McKenna and Reed appealed, saying the public strongly supports transparency in government and expects the release of public records. They argue that voters approved the Public Records Act and that petitions are a very public process, dealing directly with the legislation, and is not akin to the private act of voting.
Collins asked the appeals judges to “stay” the Tacoma court’s ban on releasing the petitions. Six groups, news media and individuals have submitted public records requests. The $25 DVDs are snapshots of the petition pages, not a searchable database.
Meanwhile, initiative activist Tim Eyman is attempting to persuade Thurston County Superior Court to block release of petition sheets for a number of other ballot measures, mostly his measures. Again, the state is resisting that effort, noting that voters themselves passed the Public Records Act nearly 40 years ago, without an exemption for petitions.
4 thoughts on “R-71: Stay tuned for federal court decision on petitions”
How would Tim Eyman feel if the initiative that he got through lowering the car tabs was not adhered to. The public records should be upheld, as it is stated 40 years ago voters approved this without an exemption for petitions. People should know if they sign something they are putting their name behind it.
Public Records Act is good for Everyone!!!
UPDATE on the Eyman front: Judge Richard Hicks of Thurston County Superior Court has just granted a temporary restraining order blocking the state from releasing initiative petitions under the state’s Public Records Act. Hicks said he wants to preserve the status quo while awaiting the ruling of the 9th Circuit. Other than the R-71-related requests that are the subject of the federal lawsuit, the only pending requests are from Bryan Wahl, who was about to receive petitions on 11 past and present ballot measures.
At the bargain price of $1500, Secretary Reed is selling Bryan Wahl, a for-profit consultant and powerful lobbyist, over three million names, signatures, and home addresses of citizens who’ve signed 11 tax initiatives since 2000. Under Sam Reed’s anything-goes policy, commercial use and re-selling of the list, in whole or in part, is not prohibited. Sign a property tax initiative and your name gets sold to real estate agents, sign a no-new-gas-tax initiative, get hit up for a Chevron credit card, sign a lower-car-tab initiative, receive a phone call from your local car dealer. Unless Judge Hicks grants a temporary restraining order, millions of Washingtonian’s very personal identifiers will be sold on the open market. These digital copies of our signatures will then be copied and sold and resold over and over again all over the world. Secretary Reed is facilitating commercial exploitation and identity theft.
The AG and the SoS brought this whole mess upon the State — not just the mess of the 9th Circuit appeal, but also the ruling by Judge Hicks. How are the AG and SoS responsible for this? Well, from the very first day that the anti-disclosure forces asked Judge Settle to issue a TRO, the AG and the SoS NEVER OPPOSED THE ISSUANCE OF THE TRO. The AG and SoS never filed a written opposition and never appeared in court to argue against the TRO. In fact, when Judge Settle issued a TRO that lasted for 36 days, and then extended it for another 10 days until his ruling on the preliminary injunction, the AG and the SoS never objected to the duration of the TRO –even though the federal rules are TOTALLY CLEAR that TROs can be granted for ONLY 10 days and then extended (at most) for another 10 days (20 days total — not 46 days!). Also, the federal laws are very clear that if a TRO continues in effect beyond 20 days, then one of the parties has the right to appeal to the Circuit court immediately — not wait until a ruling on the preliminary injunction. But the AG and SoS did not appeal to the 9th Circuit when the 40 days was up, instead they allowed the illegal TRO to remain in effect until Judge Settle issued the preliminary injunction in mid-September. In this situation, why should Judge Hicks be concerned if he also issues a TRO for the pending requests from Bryan Wahl? And why should the 9th Circuit be concerned about acting quickly, when the AG and SoS have let this illegality continue for weeks and weeks?
To make matters worse, the SoS himself allowed this entire R-71 process to be manipulated when he accepted signatures on the R-71 petitions from people who were not even voters when they signed the petitions (it doesn’t really matter that the Thurston County Superior Court judge ruled a few weeks ago that the SoS had discretion to accept those signatures — THE FACT is that every other state in the US that limits petitions to “registered voters” does NOT allow people to sign a petition and then register AFTER they sign). The SoS also allowed manipulation of the process when he didn’t insist that the circulators sign their names — and indeed he accepted hundreds of petition pages where the person whose name was ‘stamped’ as the circulator of the petition page was admittedly NOT the person who actually circulated those pages to the people who signed. OK, here again — why should the courts really care about releasing the R-71 signatures when the SoS (and the AG) have allowed the R-71 proponents to turn the signature-gathering process into a big joke with very little integrity?
At this stage, all we can hope is that the 9th Circuit really does care! That the 9th Circuit has a stronger view of the public’s right to know, and of a fair referendum process, so that the court doesn’t allow its decision to be affected by the negligence of the SoS and the AG in how this entire matter has been handled.
Strong language here? Yes. But –to quote a great printed book — you “reap what you sew”. The SoS and the AG have sown the seeds for this mess. Let’s hope that the 9th Circuit doesn’t hold that against the people of Washington State who deserve better.
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