Back­ers of Ini­tia­tive 1515, a right wing scheme to legal­ize dis­crim­i­na­tion against trans­gen­der indi­vid­u­als in Wash­ing­ton State, have can­celed their appoint­ment to turn in sig­na­tures after con­clud­ing they did­n’t have enough to make the bal­lot, the Sec­re­tary of State’s office announced only min­utes ago.

“The I‑1515 (‘bath­room ini­tia­tive’) cam­paign has can­celed their Fri­day appoint­ment and will not be bring­ing in sig­na­tures,” said David Ammons, com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor for Wash­ing­ton Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman. “Cam­paign chief Joseph Back­holm con­tact­ed our Elec­tions Divi­sion and indi­cat­ed the cam­paign did not gath­er enough sig­na­tures to meet the thresh­old (246k bare min­i­mum and 325k sug­gest­ed lev­el to cov­er dupli­cate and invalid signatures.)”

“This evening we made the dif­fi­cult deci­sion to can­cel tomor­row morning’s meet­ing with the Sec­re­tary of State,” said I‑1515 spon­sor Joseph Back­holm in an email to back­ers. “Despite a tremen­dous and hum­bling effort from our faith­ful core of vol­un­teers, as of 4:30 PM, we did not have enough sig­na­tures to rea­son­ably believe we will meet the required 246,000 quo­ta to get I‑1515 on the ballot.”

This is a huge, huge vic­to­ry. With Tim Eyman hav­ing already failed to qual­i­fy any­thing, the demise of I‑1515 means that for the first time in decades, there will be no right wing ini­tia­tives on Wash­ing­ton’s statewide ballot.

Wash­ing­ton’s pro­gres­sive move­ment, mean­while, will have not just one, not just two, but sever­al ini­tia­tives on the statewide ballot.

For exam­ple, I‑1433, which would raise the min­i­mum wage to $13.50 and require most employ­ers to pro­vide paid leave to their workers.

Or I‑1491, which would save lives and empow­er fam­i­lies by allow­ing courts to issue extreme risk pro­tec­tion orders bar­ring indi­vid­u­als who the evi­dence shows are a dan­ger to them­selves or oth­ers from access­ing firearms.

Or I‑735, which puts Wash­ing­ton on record as call­ing for a fed­er­al con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment hold­ing that cor­po­ra­tions are not peo­ple and mon­ey is not speech.

The right wing may try to qual­i­fy a mea­sure sim­i­lar to I‑1515 for the 2017 bal­lot, so we must remain vig­i­lant and ready to pro­tect hard-won LGBT civ­il rights. But for now, the Wash­ing­ton Won’t Dis­crim­i­nate cam­paign has won a huge vic­to­ry. Togeth­er, we stood up to big­otry and edu­cat­ed vot­ers about the grave harm I‑1515 would cause. That helped frus­trate the cam­paign’s sig­na­ture gath­er­ing effort. They’ve now thrown in the tow­el. This is tru­ly a great day for Wash­ing­ton State.

UPDATE, 6:45 PM: Seth Kir­by, Chair of Wash­ing­ton Won’t Dis­crim­i­nate, has respond­ed to the fail­ure of I‑1515. Here’s Seth’s mes­sage to supporters:

After months of decep­tive cam­paign­ing, in which we’ve undoubt­ed­ly wit­nessed numer­ous reports of inflat­ed I‑1515 sig­na­ture counts—the cam­paign to repeal trans­gen­der pro­tec­tions is offi­cial­ly retreating.

That means that Washington’s non-dis­crim­i­na­tion laws, which have been pro­tect­ing trans­gen­der Wash­ing­to­ni­ans and their fam­i­lies for more than a decade, will stay on the books—and con­tin­ue to pro­tect our neigh­bors and friends for years to come.

Today’s remark­able vic­to­ry is tes­ta­ment to the fact that, in Wash­ing­ton, dis­crim­i­na­tion will NOT stand. I am proud to live and work in a state where peo­ple know that everyone—including trans­gen­der Washingtonians—deserves to be treat­ed fair­ly and equal­ly under the law. And we stand by those con­vic­tions to the very end.

The evi­dence is over­whelm­ing. In a mat­ter of mere months we mobi­lized thou­sands of grass­roots sup­port­ers and unit­ed an unprece­dent­ed coali­tion of trans­gen­der Wash­ing­to­ni­ans and their fam­i­lies, more than 150 busi­ness­es, hun­dreds of faith lead­ers, edu­ca­tion advo­cates and more behind the sim­ple notion that dis­crim­i­na­tion has no place in our state.

When we asked you to stand up to pro­po­nents of trans­gen­der dis­crim­i­na­tion and say No On I‑1515, you deliv­ered 110%—and today it paid off, BIG time. In short: This cam­paign would not have been pos­si­ble with­out fair-mind­ed and com­mit­ted sup­port­ers like you.

And as a trans­gen­der Washingtonian—who would have been very direct­ly impact­ed by a poten­tial repeal of our non-dis­crim­i­na­tion laws—I can’t thank you enough for stand­ing with us in defense of fair­ness and equal­i­ty for all.

We will keep you post­ed as we decide where this cam­paign goes next. For now, cel­e­bra­tions are in order!

And here’s the cam­paign’s press release.

This post will be updat­ed with addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion in the hours to come.