Prov­ing that there still is such a thing as a cit­i­zen ini­tia­tive, the staff and vol­un­teers of the Wash­ing­ton Coali­tion to Amend the Con­sti­tu­tion (WAmend) today made the hap­py trek to Wash­ing­ton’s cap­i­tal city of Olympia to sub­mit hun­dreds of thou­sands of sig­na­tures for Ini­tia­tive 735, which would for­mal­ly put the Ever­green State on record as call­ing for a fed­er­al con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment to end the legal fic­tion that cor­po­ra­tions are peo­ple and mon­ey is speech.

Spon­sored by Norm Con­rad, Ini­tia­tive 735 is an ini­tia­tive to the 2016 Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture. If Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman cer­ti­fies it, as expect­ed, it will go before the House and Sen­ate for con­sid­er­a­tion this win­ter. If the House and Sen­ate ignore it and fail to enact it into law, it will auto­mat­i­cal­ly appear on the Novem­ber 2016 bal­lot for the peo­ple to decide. (The House and Sen­ate also have the option of send­ing it to the Novem­ber 2016 bal­lot with an alternative.)

Statewide ini­tia­tives, whether to the Leg­is­la­ture or to the peo­ple, require at least 246,372 valid sig­na­tures to qual­i­fy (equiv­a­lent to 8% of the peo­ple who vot­ed in the last elec­tion for gov­er­nor). The Sec­re­tary of State rec­om­mends that cam­paigns sub­mit at least 320,000 sig­na­tures to off­set dupli­cate and invalid signatures.

WAmend and its part­ner Fix Democ­ra­cy First for I‑735 sub­mit­ted more than 325,000 sig­na­tures to the Sec­re­tary of State’s Elec­tions Annex this after­noon, with dozens of vol­un­teers on hand to cel­e­brate, so I‑735 will almost cer­tain­ly make it, which is fan­tas­tic news. The dead­line for sub­mis­sion of sig­na­tures for an ini­tia­tive to the peo­ple is tomor­row, New Year’s Eve, at the close of busi­ness (5 PM).

The vast major­i­ty of the sig­na­tures col­lect­ed for I‑735 (over 280,000 of the 325,000+ sub­mit­ted, to be pre­cise) were gath­ered by vol­un­teer peti­tion­ers, which is pret­ty much unheard of in this day and age.

As Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate read­ers know, Tim Eyman gets on the bal­lot near­ly every year because he has wealthy bene­fac­tors who sup­ply him with megabucks so he can pur­chase a vote on a scheme of his choos­ing. Eyman oper­ates as a mouth­piece for these wealthy indi­vid­u­als, though he false­ly mas­quer­ades as a fight­er for the lit­tle guy at the media events he stages. He’s always the star of his own show.

WAmend did­n’t have the check­books of hedge fund man­agers and real estate devel­op­ers at its dis­pos­al, but what it did have was a corps of deter­mined, moti­vat­ed activists who believe that democ­ra­cy belongs to We the People.

That was evi­dent from today’s turn-in event at the Sec­re­tary of State’s office, which fea­tured a large group of activists rep­re­sent­ing the many Wash­ing­to­ni­ans who cir­cu­lat­ed peti­tions. You could tell from observ­ing the scene that this was a true peo­ple-pow­ered sig­na­ture dri­ve that took a lot of grit and per­sis­tence to pull off.

WAmend vol­un­teers cel­e­brate the suc­cess of the I‑735 sig­na­ture dri­ve (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

WAmend did raise mon­ey to pay staff to over­see its sig­na­ture dri­ve, but as men­tioned, most of its sig­na­tures were col­lect­ed by volunteers.

NPI Advi­so­ry Coun­cil mem­ber Steve Zemke, a vet­er­an of many past ini­tia­tive cam­paigns, served as WAmend’s State Field Direc­tor, work­ing with WAmend’s statewide offi­cers and coun­ty coor­di­na­tors to keep the cam­paign on track and in reg­u­lar com­mu­ni­ca­tion with I‑735 sup­port­ers and sig­na­ture gatherers.

The WAmend Hon­or Roll lists the cam­paign’s most pro­duc­tive vol­un­teers. Top­ping the list is Lin­da Bock, who sin­gle­hand­ed­ly gath­ered some 21,000 sig­na­tures on over a thou­sand peti­tion sheets. Now that’s dedication.

Sixth on the list is WAmend Cam­paign Chair Diane Jones, a devot­ed friend and sup­port­er of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, who her­self gath­ered more than 5,000 sig­na­tures over the course of the last ten months. Jones head­lined the press con­fer­ence out­side the Sec­re­tary of State’s Elec­tions Annex.

“Our gov­ern­ment should not be for sale,” Jones said in a state­ment cel­e­brat­ing the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of the I‑735 sig­na­ture dri­ve. “The flood of mon­ey into elec­tions frus­trates the rights of nine­ty-nine per­cent of citizens.”

Jones and fel­low grass­roots lead­ers like WAmend Sec­re­tary Cindy Black had pre­vi­ous­ly been involved in try­ing to qual­i­fy I‑1329 as an ini­tia­tive to the peo­ple in 2014. Though they came up short, to their cred­it, they resolved to try again, and com­mit­ted to lay­ing the ear­ly ground­work need­ed to win on a sec­ond attempt.

We hap­pi­ly pledged our sup­port when asked, and rec­om­mend­ed that they bring Steve Zemke aboard to plan and exe­cute the sig­na­ture dri­ve. Thank­ful­ly, they did, and today, many months of thought­ful plan­ning and hard work paid off with the sub­mis­sion of hun­dreds of thou­sands of sig­na­tures for I‑735.

Though pas­sage of I‑735 will not, by itself, bring about the fed­er­al con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment we need to reclaim our democ­ra­cy, it does move us clos­er to the goal­posts. This is a marathon, not a sprint, to use an old run­ning adage.

In The Lorax, one of my favorite books grow­ing up, Dr. Seuss reminds us that we must be the change we want to see in the world. “Unless some­one like you cares a whole awful lot, noth­ing is going to get bet­ter. It’s not.”

As activists and con­cerned cit­i­zens, we have a choice. We can whine and com­plain, or we can work for change. We at NPI believe in the lat­ter. Effec­tive activism has always been part of our ethos. It has been our plea­sure to pro­vide sup­port and assis­tance to WAmend over the past year, and we’re look­ing for­ward to par­tic­i­pat­ing in the cam­paign to pass I‑735 in 2016. Onwards, and con­grat­u­la­tions to every­one who made this great day pos­si­ble. We made it!