XPost: alt.politics.usa.constitution, alt.politics.guns, alt.california   
   XPost: sac.general   
   From: gp@dont-email.me   
      
   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   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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