Ini­tia­tive 1000, the Wash­ing­ton State Diver­si­ty, Equi­ty, and Inclu­sion Act, appears head­ed towards a pub­lic vote this Novem­ber thanks to a right wing effort that seeks to over­turn the water­shed mea­sure through a referendum.

Ref­er­en­dum 88, spon­sored by Kan Qiu, asks Wash­ing­to­ni­ans if they want to keep or scrap Ini­tia­tive 1000, which the House and Sen­ate adopt­ed just before Sine Die at the end of the 2019 reg­u­lar leg­isla­tive ses­sion back in April. If a major­i­ty of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans votes Approved, I‑1000 would remain the law of the land and go into effect. If a major­i­ty votes Reject­ed, I‑1000 would be eliminated.

The court-approved bal­lot title for Ref­er­en­dum 88 is as follows:

The leg­is­la­ture passed Ini­tia­tive Mea­sure No. 1000 con­cern­ing affir­ma­tive action and rem­e­dy­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion, and vot­ers have filed a suf­fi­cient ref­er­en­dum peti­tion on this act. Ini­tia­tive 1000 would allow the state to rem­e­dy dis­crim­i­na­tion for cer­tain groups and to imple­ment affir­ma­tive action, with­out the use of quo­tas or pref­er­en­tial treat­ment (as defined), in pub­lic edu­ca­tion, employ­ment, and contracting.

Should Ini­tia­tive 1000 be

• Approved [ ]
• Reject­ed [ ]

Qiu’s group sub­mit­ted what it said were close to about 177,000 sig­na­tures today at the Sec­re­tary of State’s Elec­tions Annex in Olympia, and they plan to sub­mit about 20,000 more before the dead­line pass­es for sub­mis­sion of peti­tions, which is this Sat­ur­day at 5 PM. Even with­out those extra sig­na­tures, they appear to eas­i­ly have a sig­nif­i­cant enough sig­na­ture cush­ion to qual­i­fy for a ran­dom sam­ple check.

We believe many of those sig­na­tures were obtained under false pre­tens­es, how­ev­er. Activists from around Wash­ing­ton State have told us that they encoun­tered R‑88 peti­tion­ers who used out­right false­hoods to pitch the ref­er­en­dum, say­ing it would help vet­er­ans and bring back affir­ma­tive action.

But the whole pur­pose of R‑88 is to do the oppo­site… by abol­ish­ing I‑1000.

Sad­ly, the peo­ple behind R‑88 don’t want state agen­cies to have the free­dom to con­duct out­reach to dis­ad­van­taged and his­tor­i­cal­ly under­rep­re­sent­ed groups. They are con­vinced that such out­reach is racism. Their “Let Peo­ple Vote” ral­ly­ing cry is disin­gen­u­ous, as the peo­ple’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives have already vot­ed to adopt I‑1000, which was signed by twice the num­ber of peo­ple who signed R‑88.

NPI has tak­en a posi­tion urg­ing an Approved vote on Ref­er­en­dum 88 in the event it qual­i­fies, which we expect it to. Our board took an Approved posi­tion on R‑88 last month after our staff assessed that the mea­sure was like­ly to qualify.

If you are part of an orga­ni­za­tion that would like to join the coali­tion to safe­guard fair­ness and oppor­tu­ni­ty in Wash­ing­ton, we invite you to join us at approve88.org.

Because R‑88 is on the verge of qual­i­fy­ing, efforts to imple­ment Ini­tia­tive 1000 will be paused, Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee said in a state­ment this evening.

Said the Governor:

“The Legislature’s approval of I‑1000 sig­naled an impor­tant com­mit­ment to dis­man­tling the sys­temic bar­ri­ers that keep many Wash­ing­to­ni­ans from hav­ing equal access to edu­ca­tion­al and eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties. Our agen­cies have begun ini­tial prepa­ra­tion to imple­ment the new law, and are pre­pared to launch this work if and when the law is allowed to go into effect. We are await­ing the ver­i­fied count from the Sec­re­tary of State before tak­ing any addi­tion­al action.”

For­mer Gov­er­nor Gary Locke also respond­ed to the sub­mis­sion of sig­na­tures for R‑88 as one of the dis­tin­guished elect­ed lead­ers quot­ed in NPI’s state­ment announc­ing the for­ma­tion of the Approve 88 coalition.

“I believe I‑1000 cel­e­brates our state’s diver­si­ty and is the right action to ensure fair­ness and oppor­tu­ni­ty for all our cit­i­zens,” said Locke, who served as Washington’s chief exec­u­tive from Jan­u­ary of 1997 until Jan­u­ary 2005 and lat­er as the Unit­ed States of America’s Sec­re­tary of Com­merce and Ambas­sador to Chi­na. Locke worked close­ly with fel­low for­mer Gov­er­nors Dan Evans and Chris Gre­goire to cham­pi­on I‑1000 as an ini­tia­tive to the Legislature.

“Con­trary to some beliefs, I‑1000 does not repeal I‑200’s pro­hi­bi­tions on quo­tas, set-asides, or pref­er­ences,” Locke explained.

“I‑1000 mere­ly makes it clear that recruit­ment and out­reach are per­mis­si­ble and pro­vides oppor­tu­ni­ties for vet­er­ans, women, and minori­ties for con­sid­er­a­tion by uni­ver­si­ties and col­leges for admis­sion and for con­tract­ing with governments.”

We deeply appre­ci­ate the work of our four liv­ing gov­er­nors in sup­port of diver­si­ty, oppor­tu­ni­ty, fair­ness, and inclu­sion in Wash­ing­ton. Dan Evans, Chris Gre­goire, Gary Locke, and Jay Inslee have all been out­spo­ken in call­ing for I‑200 to be amend­ed so that our state agen­cies and insti­tu­tions of high­er edu­ca­tion can be cat­a­lysts for improv­ing lives and bet­ter­ing our com­mu­ni­ties. By adopt­ing I‑1000, the Leg­is­la­ture showed it was capa­ble of lis­ten­ing and act­ing on a crit­i­cal issue.

But now I‑1000 is on hold until Ref­er­en­dum 88 is decided.

It’s vital that every­one in Wash­ing­ton who wants to see I‑1000 remain the law of the land get active and join the coali­tion to Approve Ref­er­en­dum 88. Togeth­er, we can keep our state mov­ing for­wards instead of slid­ing backwards.

We hope you’ll join us.