More than eight in ten Wash­ing­ton vot­ers are sup­port­ive of leg­is­la­tion that would add trans­paren­cy and con­text to statewide ini­tia­tives and ref­er­en­da in Wash­ing­ton by dis­clos­ing fis­cal impacts to vot­ers on the bal­lot, the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute’s most recent statewide research poll has found.

An incred­i­ble 82% of vot­ers sur­veyed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling last month for NPI expressed sup­port for requir­ing offi­cial descrip­tions for ini­tia­tives to inform vot­ers whether the pro­posed ini­tia­tive would increase or decrease fund­ing for pub­lic ser­vices. Just 11% were opposed and only 7% were not sure.

65% of the respon­dents expressed strong sup­port for the idea, which is under con­sid­er­a­tion in the Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture as House Bill 1876.

Visu­al­iza­tion of NPI’s poll find­ing on sup­port for fis­cal impact dis­clo­sures in bal­lot mea­sure descriptions

Spon­sored by State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mia Gregerson (D‑33rd Dis­trict: South King Coun­ty), HB 1876 was approved by the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives last month and is now on the floor of the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate. The bill is sup­port­ed by the League of Women Vot­ers of Wash­ing­ton, AARP Wash­ing­ton State, Fix Democ­ra­cy First, and many oth­er peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions that share NPI’s com­mit­ment to mak­ing our bal­lots more sen­si­ble and infor­ma­tive for voters.

HB 1876 is pret­ty straightforward.

It requires that a mea­sure with a fis­cal impact appear on the bal­lot with a dis­clo­sure stat­ing whether the mea­sure would increase or decrease fund­ing for pub­lic ser­vices, fol­lowed by a suc­cinct list of the ser­vices impact­ed. If the gen­er­al fund is affect­ed, the state­ment would list the top three cat­e­gories of state ser­vices sup­port­ed by the gen­er­al fund in the cur­rent state budget.

Although local propo­si­tions such as levies already pro­vide this kind of fis­cal impact infor­ma­tion, statewide bal­lot mea­sures do not. In fact, state law does­n’t allow fis­cal impact dis­clo­sures to be append­ed to statewide ini­tia­tive and ref­er­en­dum bal­lot titles. HB 1876 solves this prob­lem, there­by ensur­ing that in the future, vot­ers are advised before they pick up a pen to fill in a Yes, No, Approved, or Reject­ed oval that the mea­sure they’re vot­ing on would affect the state’s finances.

HB 1876 is one of our pri­or­i­ty bills for 2022.

Its pas­sage will make future offi­cial descrip­tions of ini­tia­tives and ref­er­en­da more com­plete and trans­par­ent, help­ing vot­ers reach more informed deci­sions about what they’re vot­ing on, espe­cial­ly if they don’t have their voter’s pam­phlet handy. The state already pre­pares fis­cal impact state­ments for ini­tia­tives, but as not­ed above, there is no acknowl­edg­ment of pro­ject­ed fis­cal impacts on the bal­lot itself.

If HB 1876 is adopt­ed, vot­ers would be informed going for­ward when a statewide bal­lot mea­sure has an esti­mat­ed fis­cal impact, which could encour­age them to pick up their voter’s pam­phlet to learn more. This is an idea that Demo­c­ra­t­ic, Repub­li­can, and inde­pen­dent vot­ers are all enthu­si­as­tic about implementing.

Here is the ques­tion we asked and the answers we received:

QUESTION: In Wash­ing­ton State, the peo­ple may pro­pose laws for adop­tion or rejec­tion at the bal­lot after gath­er­ing suf­fi­cient sig­na­tures. These are known as ini­tia­tives. Cur­rent state law does not require offi­cial descrip­tions of ini­tia­tives to dis­close pro­ject­ed finan­cial impacts to pub­lic ser­vices as part of their bal­lot titles. Do you strong­ly sup­port, some­what sup­port, some­what oppose or strong­ly oppose requir­ing offi­cial descrip­tions for ini­tia­tives to inform vot­ers whether the pro­posed ini­tia­tive would increase or decrease fund­ing for pub­lic services?

ANSWERS:

• Sup­port: 82% 
  • Strong­ly sup­port: 65%
  • Some­what sup­port: 17%
• Oppose: 11%
  • Some­what oppose: 6%
  • Strong­ly oppose: 5%
• Not sure: 7%

Our sur­vey of 700 like­ly 2022 Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers was in the field from Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 17th through Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 18th, 2022.

It uti­lizes a blend­ed method­ol­o­gy, with auto­mat­ed phone calls to land­lines (50%) and text mes­sage answers from cell phone only respon­dents (50%).

The poll was con­duct­ed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute and has a mar­gin of error of +/- 3.7% at the 95% con­fi­dence interval.

More infor­ma­tion about the survey’s method­ol­o­gy is avail­able here.

The enthu­si­asm we saw for this leg­is­la­tion in our poll last month is tru­ly remark­able. This is eas­i­ly one of the most pop­u­lar ideas that we have ever test­ed in near­ly a decade of statewide research polling. In an era of polar­iza­tion and hyper­par­ti­san­ship, there sim­ply isn’t much that more than eight in ten vot­ers say they agree on. But strength­en­ing offi­cial descrip­tions to dis­close pro­ject­ed fis­cal impacts just makes sense. Vot­ers are wild­ly enthu­si­as­tic about this bill.

In fact, there isn’t a sin­gle group with­in the poll who are opposed. Trump vot­ers and Biden vot­ers are almost equal­ly enthu­si­as­tic. 79% of Trump vot­ers said they were sup­port­ive, while 86% of Biden vot­ers said they were supportive.

86% of inde­pen­dent vot­ers are sup­port­ive (71% strong­ly!), along with 81% of Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers and 76% of Repub­li­can voters.

Every sin­gle region of the state is incred­i­bly sup­port­ive, and the inten­si­ty of sup­port beyond King Coun­ty is extreme­ly impressive.

86% of vot­ers in East­ern and Cen­tral Wash­ing­ton are sup­port­ive (72% strong­ly), sur­pris­ing­ly exceed­ing King Coun­ty’s 80% support.

The South Sound leads all regions in over­all sup­port, with 89% total (73% strong­ly), but North Puget Sound and Olympia Penin­su­la / South­west Wash­ing­ton aren’t far behind at 79% and 80%, respectively.

Con­vict­ed chair thief and ser­i­al pub­lic dis­clo­sure law offend­er Tim Eyman, Wash­ing­ton’s most pro­lif­ic spon­sor of ini­tia­tives, is part of the 11% who oppose HB 1876. Eyman, who has made a liv­ing hawk­ing destruc­tive anti-tax ini­tia­tives, can’t stand the idea of vot­ers being advised that a mea­sure spon­sored by him or oth­ers like him would have a fis­cal impact because it would make it hard­er to dupe vot­ers with manip­u­lat­ed bal­lot titles. Eyman has described the pro­posed dis­clo­sure as akin to a “Sur­geon gen­er­al’s warn­ing for initiatives.”

How­ev­er, that’s not an appro­pri­ate metaphor.

Warn­ings from the Sur­geon Gen­er­al are required by law to appear on all con­tain­ers of cer­tain types of prod­ucts, like cig­a­rette car­tons or bot­tles con­tain­ing alco­holic bev­er­ages, and their word­ing is usu­al­ly always the same.

These dis­clo­sures would only appear when OFM assess­es that a mea­sure would have a fis­cal impact, and the dis­clo­sure’s lan­guage would be for­mu­lat­ed to inform vot­ers what ser­vices or types of ser­vices would be affected.

Every fis­cal impact dis­clo­sure would employ pre­scribed lan­guage and fol­low a for­mu­la. The Attor­ney Gen­er­al’s office would be tasked with sup­ply­ing the descrip­tors of the affect­ed ser­vices for the fis­cal impact disclosures.

The office already has to per­form a sim­i­lar task for “advi­so­ry votes” — a scheme of Eyman’s own design! How­ev­er, unlike Eyman’s “advi­so­ry votes,” these fis­cal impact dis­clo­sures would be neu­tral­ly word­ed, with the goal of pro­vid­ing essen­tial infor­ma­tion rather than try­ing to influ­ence how peo­ple vote.

The adop­tion of HB 1876 would be a huge win for vot­ers this leg­isla­tive ses­sion. We urge the Sen­ate to join the House in pass­ing this bill so that Wash­ing­to­ni­ans are assured of see­ing more descrip­tive sum­maries of ini­tia­tives and ref­er­en­da the next time they vote on a mea­sure that would affect the state’s finances.