Initiative Papers Submitted to Secretary of State

Senator Mark Greene has submitted initiative papers to the Washington Secretary of State that would change the system regarding election petitions; particularly, the petition in lieu of the filing fee that indigent or nominally indigent candidates have the option of using when running for office. Presently, the number of signatures required for the "filing fee" petition has to equal the number of dollars required to file for the particular office that the candidate is running for. The filing fee is 1% of the annual compensation for the office filed for, which effectively makes the number of signatures required for statewide office in Washington number at least around one thousand and usually considerably more than that.

This is a number that never remains static and increasingly rises, because pay raises for elected government officials increase frequently with cost of living adjustments or otherwise. Therefore, the indigent candidate, if he or she decides to run for office, must consider the prospect and bear the burden of collecting more signatures from election to election, whereas other candidates, often bankrolled by contributions from special interests, do not have to concern themselves with the work and time consumption of signature collection.

Our initiative proposal would end the burden of increasing signature requirements, which is basically unfair to indigent candidates, and would make the signatures needed for petitions in lieu of the filing fee a static number for each type of position. In this essay, we will not go into details of the initiative much as we will publish the exact wording of the initiative, later in "Senator," after it is reviewed by the Office of the Code Reviser, and other officials assign a number and a ballot title. The basic details are as follows:

Initiative to the Legislature

Make petitions in lieu of the filing fee a static number regarding the number of signatures required, as follows:

Statewide offices: 500 signatures;

U.S. House of Representatives: 200 signatures;

All other offices, state, county or local: 50 signatures.

POST-SCRIPT:
If you would like to sign the petition or go even further than that by helping to collect petition signatures, please, write the Party of Commons at PartyofCommons@yahoo.com (write "initiative petition" in the subject heading, please).

The Party of Commons Senate: http://geocities.com/partyofcommons/senate

[revised on 4/26/09]

Copyright 2009, Party of Commons TM