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The Washington State constitution, Art. 2, sec. 1, contains an
explicit direction that each “petition shall include the full
text of the measure so proposed.” A state law incorporating this
requirement specifies that all petitions circulated for
signatures must have “a readable, full, true, and correct copy
of the proposed measure printed on the reverse side of the
petition.”

The purpose is to fight fraud and misinformation by ensuring
that all voters being asked to sign the initiative petition have
the opportunity, at the time, to inform themselves and verify
the details of the proposed law they are being called upon to
support, but a recent decision by the Washington State Supreme
Court regarding the latest gun control initiative in the
Evergreen State calls into question the effectiveness of these
laws.

The text of Initiative 1639 filed with the Washington secretary
of state covers 30 pages. In addition to using a font tiny
enough to shrink all 30 pages-worth of text to fit on a single
page of the petition, the initiative sponsors neglected to use,
in the petition provided to voters, the actual text of the
initiative as it had been filed. Compounding this failure, the
teeny text included in the petition lacked clear indications to
actually show the changes – the very many changes – to the
existing law proposed by Initiative 1639.

The NRA, the Second Amendment Foundation, and other gun rights
supporters had raised I-1639’s noncompliance with mandatory
state requirements governing initiatives in severallegal
challenges.

On August 17, Thurston County Superior Court Judge James Dixon
agreed that the initiative petition did not meet the “readable,
full, true, and correct copy” requirement and issued an order
prohibiting I-1639 from appearing on the November ballot. He
absolved the secretary of state from any alleged breach of duty,
as the law at issue empowered the secretary to reject a petition
only in specified circumstances, and a failure to comply with
the “readable, full, true, and correct copy” directive was not
included.

In such cases, though, Judge Dixon ruled it was the court’s duty
to safeguard the interests of Washington’s voters and ensure
“strict compliance with the initiative process.” He explicitly
rejected the argument that close was good enough: “The court is
not persuaded by the argument that substantial compliance is the
proper analysis.” Holding up a copy of an actual petition page,
he indicated the petition did not contain a “readable copy” of
the initiative text, adding “I have 20-20 vision … I simply
cannot read it.” Moreover, the petition lacked a true, accurate
and correct replica of the initiative measure text as filed by
the sponsor. “Voters have a right to know, and sponsors have a
corresponding obligation to provide, what the initiative seeks
to accomplish. …The text on the back of these petitions [does]
not allow voters to make informed decisions. For this court to
hold otherwise would be to condone noncompliance with the clear
provisions of the law.”

Backers of the initiative immediately appealed Judge Dixon’s
ruling. On August 24th, the Washington Supreme Court reversed
his decision.

The appellate court did not dispute the findings made by Judge
Dixon regarding the failings of the petition – that the “text on
the back of the petitions was not readable and did not strictly
comply with the statutory and constitutional requirements.”
Instead, the court, in a unanimous decision, sidestepped the
compliance issue entirely and held that the court lacked the
authority to intervene. According to the Supreme Court, pre-
election judicial review to protect the integrity of the
initiative process and the mandates of the constitution was not
available in this case. The court’s inherent mandamus power
could be invoked to compel a public officer, like the secretary
of state, to perform a nondiscretionary duty imposed by law.
However, because the secretary “has no mandatory duty to not
certify an initiative petition based on the readability,
correctness, or formatting of the proposed measure printed on
the back of the petitions,” the remedy could not apply.

In her press release following the appellate court’s decision,
Secretary of State Kim Wyman referred to the fact that she had
previously “expressed significant concerns over the formatting”
of the initiative petition and concluded, “Our voters deserve
full and clear information about what they’re asked to sign
onto.”

The result of the ruling is that this flawed, unreadable, and
non-compliant initiative has been cleared to appear on the
ballot.

The decision to allow the initiative to proceed has also fueled
perceptions among Washington State gun rights supporters that,
in addition to fighting a massive funding disparity with the
billionaire-backed sponsors of the initiative, they face an
uphill battle to have their legitimate concerns about something
as basic as following the rules addressed.

Already this year Washington State’s Attorney General Bob
Ferguson, whose office is charged with the responsibility for
preparing the ballot title and summary language for each
initiative, unusually “broke with tradition” to throw his
support behind I-1639. Shortly before May 9, when his office
released the proposed ballot title and summary for the
initiative, he expressed he was “deeply committed to [the
initiative] and, in general, to having common sense gun reform
laws in our state,” adding “It’s outrageous what we have, it’s
deeply disappointing to me that our state Legislature won’t
address these issues in a forthright manner…” This endorsement
was cited in one legal challenge objecting to the proposed
ballot title for I-1639, alleging, among other things, that the
“Attorney General’s office has created a substantial reasonable
suspicion in the eyes of the general public that the language
used in this Concise Description has been drafted for maximum
bias and support of the sponsors of the initiative by his
unprecedented and very public statement of support for this
initiative.” As a result of these several challenges, the ballot
title was subsequently ordered to be revised by the court.

Following the August 24th court decision, many in Washington
State have questioned to what extent any compliance with the
constitutional provisions governing ballot measures is required.
One outraged citizen went further, penning an article titled
“Law is dead in Washington state: I-1639 is inarguably illegal.”

Washington State residents, and anyone else who is interested in
more information on I-1639, is encouraged to visit the NRA’s
website at https://www.initiative1639.org. In the meantime,
we’ll continue to keep readers updated as more facts surrounding
this unlawful initiative continue to unfold.

https://www.nraila.org/articles/20180907/law-is-dead-in- washington-state-outraged-reaction-to-court-decision-on-i-1639
 

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