Minimum wage initiative qualifies for state ballot after signature checks

The first of four Initiatives to the People has qualified for the November General Election ballot, Secretary of State Kim Wyman announced Friday.

Initiative 1433, which aims to increase the state minimum wage to $13.50 an hour in increments over four years and require employers to provide paid sick leave, qualified for the ballot with 345,907 signatures. The measure required 246,372 signatures to qualify, and a random sampling of more than 10,000 signatures was taken to prove validity of the signatures collected. According to a news release announcing the ballot measure has qualified, the rejection rate in the sampling was 15 percent, which is lower than the average error rate of 18 percent.

The increment schedule for the wage increases, if passed, would see hourly minimum wage rise to $11 in 2017, $11.50 in 2018, $12 in 2019 and $13.50 in 2020. The state minimum wage is currently $9.47 per hour.

The paid sick leave portion mandates that employers pay sick leave to employees after the 90th calendar day from when employment began, and states that an employee shall accrue at least one hour of paid sick for every 40 hours worked as an employee. This portion of the measure would take effect Jan. 1, 2018, while the minimum wage portion would begin Jan. 1, 2017.

I-1433 was filed with the SOS office Jan. 22 this year, and signature verification began last week.

The SOS is working now to verify signatures for other citizens measures. These include I-1491, I-1501 and I-1464.

Initiative 1491, The Extreme Risk Protection Order Act filed March 1, intends to temporarily prevent individuals at high risk of harming themselves or others from accessing firearms. This would be accomplished by allowing family, household members and police to obtain a court order when the person presents obvious evidence of significant danger.

The text of the initiative states, “Every year, over one hundred thousand people are victims of gunshot wounds and more than thirty thousand of those victims lose their lives. Studies show that individuals who engage in certain dangerous behaviors are significantly more likely to commit violence toward themselves or others in the near future.” The text also states the initiative aims to respect Constitutional rights “by providing a court procedure for family, household members, and law enforcement to obtain an order temporarily restricting a person's access to firearms.”

Election officials began the process of verifying signatures for I-1491 immediately after approving I-1433. That initiative, before signature checks, garnered 341,710.

Initiative 1501, The Seniors and Vulnerable Individuals' Safety and Financial Crimes Prevention Act, is meant to protect the safety and security of seniors and vulnerable individuals in three ways, which include increasing criminal penalties for identify theft and consumer fraud which targets seniors and other vulnerable individual and prohibiting the release of public records that could facilitate identity theft.

The initiative defines seniors as persons older than 65. The text states, “The people find that additional measures are needed to protect seniors and vulnerable individuals from identity theft because such individuals often have less ability to protect themselves and such individuals can be targeted using information available through public sources, including publicly available information that identifies such individuals or their in-home caregivers.”

Organizers gathered 341,376 signatures for the initiative after filing on March 3 this year, and signature verification will begin on it following the conclusion of the signature checks for I-1491.

The final initiative, I-464 is known as the Washington Government Accountability Act. The text of it reads, “The people find and declare that accountability to the people is of the utmost importance in Washington's system of electoral politics. Today, that system is tainted with a perception of corruption, insufficient participation by citizens, inadequate disclosure of relevant information to the public on political advertising and paid lobbying, and inadequate enforcement of the laws intended to address these concerns.”

According to the document, increased accountability would come from strengthening campaign contribution limits and establishing additional restrictions on campaign finances; promoting citizen participation and open political discussion by establishing an effective system for citizen financing of election campaigns; improving public disclosure of information related to political advertising and lobbying, and improving enforcement of the laws governing electoral politics.

SOS Communications Director David Ammons said the number of signatures for this initiative is not known yet, but it should be similar to the other three numbers, as the signatures were gathered by the same group.

“Most of the solicitors had all four petition clipboards,” he said. “It should be in the same neighborhood.”

I-464 will be the last of the four up for verification.

To read the full text of the initiatives go to sos.wa.gov.