Other Papers Say: Signature tactics set low bar

The following editorial originally appeared in The Seattle Times:

The Republican Party-backed “Let’s Go Washington” campaign delivered the final chunk of more than 2.6 million signatures to the secretary of state last week. If certified, the six initiatives will test whether the political victories of the majority governing party — Gov. Jay Inslee and state Democrats — went beyond the will of voters.

This was a particularly bruising signature-gathering season. Tactics included a Democratic Party-backed phone line to report sightings and physical descriptions of signature gatherers. The move, intended for opponents to intervene in the efforts, was too much even for Shasti Conrad, the state party chair. She admitted to The Times’ Jim Brunner it was “probably a bridge too far.”

In at least one incident, on Dec. 17, a woman allegedly crossed off a page of signatures at Costco. It is a gross misdemeanor to interfere in signature gathering and, if proven, she should be prosecuted.

Groups supporting a so-called “decline to sign” effort said their mission was to inform voters about what they were signing. “People will say anything when they are getting paid and trying to get your signature,” said Fuse Washington Executive Director Aaron Ostrom, one of those groups. But lawyers for “Let’s Go Washington” claimed the conduct went too far; they sent a cease and desist letter over what they viewed as “interference” in the rights of voters signing the initiatives.

State Sens. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, and Jeff Wilson, R-Longview, have filed a bill in Olympia that would establish a 25-foot buffer zone for opponents around signature gathering. But it’s hard to imagine how a bubble wouldn’t interfere with others’ First Amendment rights to protest what petitioners might say.

To those who signed the petitions last year: Hopefully, you did your homework. These initiatives can have far-reaching effects and, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, your support makes you an active and public partisan.

“When a Washington voter signs a referendum petition … he is acting as a legislator,” wrote U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in support of an opinion that names of those who signed a referendum to repeal domestic partnership benefits in Washington are public.

As for the “decline to sign” campaign: Some of those tactics, including identifying signature gatherers on a phone report line, are repugnant. The more hardball that is played, the more likely other parties might engage in something even more unseemly next time, when it’s an initiative you support.

If you don’t want people interfering with democracy, say it loudly wherever and whenever it occurs — not just when your party is the one being attacked. Otherwise, expect an in-kind response next time.