Whatever happened to “let the people vote”? Right wing voices silent as Alan Gottlieb’s group tries to block I‑1639 from the ballot

Tomor­row, the Alliance for Gun Respon­si­bil­i­ty is expect­ed to sub­mit more than three hun­dred and fifty thou­sand sig­na­tures to the Sec­re­tary of State in sup­port of Ini­tia­tive 1639, a mea­sure that aims to make our com­mu­ni­ties safer by sen­si­bly restrict­ing sales of dead­ly semi­au­to­mat­ic weapons.

If approved in Novem­ber, the Attor­ney Gen­er­al’s office says I‑1639 would:

… require enhanced back­ground checks, firearm train­ing, and wait­ing peri­ods before semi­au­to­mat­ic assault rifles may be pur­chased or deliv­ered. It would impose age lim­i­ta­tions on who may pur­chase or pos­sess cer­tain firearms, includ­ing pro­hibit­ing firearm pur­chas­es by per­sons under age twen­ty-one. It would require cer­tain secured firearm stor­age or trig­ger-locks, and crim­i­nal­ize cer­tain firearm stor­age if it results in unau­tho­rized use. It would enact oth­er firearm-relat­ed require­ments, includ­ing cer­tain warn­ings, record­keep­ing, and fees.

I‑1639 is the third ini­tia­tive spear­head­ed by the Alliance for Gun Respon­si­bil­i­ty. The Alliance pre­vi­ous­ly qual­i­fied I‑594 and I‑1491 to the bal­lot in 2014 and 2016, respec­tive­ly, with each mea­sure win­ning approval from voters.

I‑594 elim­i­nat­ed dan­ger­ous back­ground check loop­holes, while I‑1491 cre­at­ed extreme risk pro­tec­tion orders — a tool to enable fam­i­lies and law enforce­ment to pro­tect peo­ple who may be a dan­ger to them­selves or others.

Now the Alliance wants to give Wash­ing­to­ni­ans the oppor­tu­ni­ty to enact anoth­er law that would pre­vent gun vio­lence and make com­mu­ni­ties safer.

But hav­ing gone 0 for 2 against the Alliance in pre­vi­ous years, Wash­ing­ton’s right wing has appar­ent­ly lost its appetite for anoth­er bal­lot battle.

Instead of sim­ply mak­ing prepa­ra­tions to wage a no cam­paign, a league of gun enthu­si­ast groups and right wing activists orga­nized by Alan Got­tlieb launched a des­per­ate effort ear­li­er this week to block I‑1639 from going to the ballot.

Yes, you read that cor­rect­ly: Got­tlieb’s crew is try­ing to have peti­tions bear­ing the sig­na­tures of hun­dreds of thou­sands of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans invalidated.

Why? Because they argue the text on the back of the peti­tions is too small.

And no, I’m not jok­ing. Here’s Alan Gottlieb:

Dur­ing the sig­na­ture gath­er­ing process… we were con­tact­ed by sev­er­al peo­ple who were alarmed at the unread­abil­i­ty of the text, and also because they could not real­ly tell what changes they were being asked to make to exist­ing law. The micro­scop­ic maze of fine print used by the ini­tia­tive spon­sors dis­guised the actu­al lan­guage of the mea­sure on the back of their peti­tions, which vio­lates state law. Read­ing that peti­tion is like tak­ing a bad eye exam.

Got­tlieb’s press release quotes from the pro­vi­sion of state law his group believes was vio­lat­ed, but does­n’t cite it. The rel­e­vant pro­vi­sions are found in Chap­ter 29A.72 RCW. For exam­ple, here is RCW 29A.72.100:

The per­son propos­ing the mea­sure shall print blank peti­tions upon sin­gle sheets of paper of good writ­ing qual­i­ty (includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to newsprint) not less than eleven inch­es in width and not less than four­teen inch­es in length. Each peti­tion at the time of cir­cu­lat­ing, sign­ing, and fil­ing with the sec­re­tary of state must con­sist of not more than one sheet with num­bered lines for not more than twen­ty sig­na­tures, with the pre­scribed warn­ing and title, be in the form required by RCW 29A.72.110, 29A.72.120, or 29A.72.130, and have a read­able, full, true, and cor­rect copy of the pro­posed mea­sure print­ed on the reverse side of the petition.

It’s worth not­ing that the statute does not spec­i­fy a min­i­mum font size for text on ini­tia­tive peti­tions. It says only that the text must be “read­able, full, true, and cor­rect”. The statute does not elab­o­rate on what “read­able” means.

As Got­tlieb is no doubt aware, it is fair­ly com­mon for the text on the reverse side of ini­tia­tive peti­tions to be set in a small font so as to ensure the entire text will fit on the sheets. NPI has fought dozens of right wing ini­tia­tives over the years that had their text in some pret­ty fine print and were thus arguably unread­able — cer­tain­ly for peo­ple lack­ing good to excel­lent eye­sight, or with far­sight­ed vision.

We’re not aware that Got­tlieb has ever com­plained about any right wing ini­tia­tives suf­fer­ing such a defect, let alone gone to court to have their peti­tions thrown out.

But it’s appar­ent Got­tlieb and com­pa­ny real­ly do not want I‑1639 going to the bal­lot. They do not want Wash­ing­to­ni­ans to vote on this measure.

So they looked for a pre­text for inval­i­dat­ing the I‑1639 petitions.

Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court Com­mis­sion­er Michael John­son slapped them down on Tues­day by deny­ing their motion for injunc­tive relief and dis­miss­ing their action. Got­tlieb, how­ev­er, is unde­terred. He’s already request­ing reconsideration.

In the past, when pro­gres­sive orga­ni­za­tions have gone to court to chal­lenge right wing ini­tia­tives like Tim Eyman’s I‑1366 as beyond the scope of the ini­tia­tive pow­er, right wing voic­es have howled in protest. But now? Crickets.

What­ev­er hap­pened to let the peo­ple vote?

Seri­ous­ly… what­ev­er hap­pened to let the peo­ple vote!?

Attempt­ing to inval­i­date thou­sands of peti­tions on a tech­ni­cal­i­ty seems like exact­ly the kind of thing that Tim Eyman and his amen cho­rus would be up in arms about. After all, were the Alliance’s I‑1639 peti­tions to be thrown out, it would set a prece­dent that orga­ni­za­tions on our side of the ide­o­log­i­cal spec­trum could use to poten­tial­ly block right wing mea­sures from the bal­lot in the future.

But so far… they have been silent.

We are all for mak­ing ini­tia­tive peti­tions more acces­si­ble and eas­i­er to com­pre­hend, and we’d like to see the Leg­is­la­ture take up the mat­ter in 2019 when it meets again. We have long believed Wash­ing­ton is long over­due for reforms that will pro­tect the spir­it and the integri­ty of the Sev­enth Amend­ment to our Con­sti­tu­tion. In the mean­time, though, this legal chal­lenge to I‑1639 should be shot down and the mea­sure allowed to pro­ceed to the Novem­ber bal­lot if suf­fi­cient sig­na­tures have been sub­mit­ted — as it appears has been the case.