Washington Anti-Gays May Have Failed

Timothy Kincaid

July 24th, 2009

Tomorrow is the deadline to file signatures to put Washington’s domestic partnership enhancement law on the ballot. And those collecting signatures may not have succeeded in their goal to stop gay couples from achieving the same rights, responsibilities, and obligations as opposite-sex couples. (Seattle Times)

In a statement released Friday, the Referendum 71 campaign says it will have the minimum 120,577 petition signatures needed to qualify for the ballot. But organizer Gary Randall also says they don’t have enough extra signatures to act as a cushion for errors.

I’m not certain what “enough extra signatures” means, but unless there is a substantial cushion, it is almost certain that they did not meet their goal. Most of those who administer petitions will advise a cushion of at least 20 – 25% to allow for errors, duplicates, and bogus signatures.

Randall is asking R-71 supporters to drive additional signatures to the state Capitol on Saturday afternoon, to make the deadline for referendum petitions.

The office is not open Saturday but elections officials have made an appointment to meet with the anti-gay campaign at 2:00 p.m. The odds of large numbers of supporters driving to the Capitol at a specific time are, well, less than likely.

It is too soon to be certain, but I’m guessing that the anti-gay effort may have failed.

John Herr

July 24th, 2009

I do not understand why people are allowed to vote on the rights of their fellow citizens. One of the major points of our government is to protect the minority from the majority. A citizens initiative runs right over that.

How about we have a citizens initiative to stop these crazy petitions? Or to at least stop the ability to vote out people’s rights. We somehow have to figure out how to stop them, because it’s just an endless battle of gaining rights, petition, losing rights, petition, etc. It’s hard to live with this constantly hanging over you’re head.

Please someone, make the insanity stop!

RMB

July 24th, 2009

Oh come on. I’m all for not putting the rights of a minority up for a vote, but this is part of the system. If the legislature passes a law, and they can get enough signatures to put it on the ballot, then that’s allowed.

Same thing with Maine. It’s part of their system. It has nothing to do with “Putting the rights of a minority up for a vote”, it’s “Putting any law up for a potential people’s veto”.

Burr

July 24th, 2009

The petitions are for something unconstitutional, so they shouldn’t be allowed to begin with.

I think it’s interesting the D.C.’s initiative power comes with a restriction against voting on people’s rights, which struck down any chance of ignorant mobocracy to reverse a correct decision by the local government.

David C.

July 24th, 2009

We can only hope that the signature process has not gone well for the R-71 side on this. In effect, the people will have spoken.

RMB

July 24th, 2009

“The petitions are for something unconstitutional, so they shouldn’t be allowed to begin with.”

I don’t believe this.

In DC, it absolutely WOULD have been unconstitutional.

I think it’s clearly debatable in California because you’re talking about amending the Constitution which already has certain protections.

But in Maine and Washington, the law is that any legislation that was *recently passed* can be put up for a possible repeal via vote if enough signatures are gathered. That has nothing to do with the US Constitution. It’s not like you could use the system in Maine and Washington to revoke a woman’s right to vote, homosexual activity, or things like that. It’s annoying for our cause, sure, but it’s not the same thing as California and DC.

John Herr

July 24th, 2009

Thanks so much RMB for making me feel even worse. How in the world can you think it’s a good think to be able to vote on people’s marriages?

If I was feeling like crap that my enemies could vote out my marriage, there you are agreeing with it.

Well, I want the chance to vote on everyone’s marriage then too. Let me go door to door and decide.

Now I know why I’m currently drinking. Life sucks, people think they can but into my business, and even our so called friends think this is a good thing. What is the point of electing a legisture, having them spend months or years enacting a law, and then the people can just vote it out? I’m so tired of this!!!!!Just leave us alone!!!!Please for the love of God, leave us alone and let us be happy!!!!

John Herr

July 24th, 2009

Okay, let me say one more thing. The reason it’s good that the legislature enacts laws is that they spend months researching a law. What are the ramifications, what are all the possibilities, who will it help, who will it hurt. (at least that is what I imagine happens). But when people vote on it, few of them are doing any research. They are voting a gut feeling, or their own prejudices. It is wrong to base laws on people’s feelings. It’s not a good thing. And what is this 50.1% gets to decide for the other 49.9%? Crap, if you’re going to take someone’s rights away, at least let it be 66%. Or if it’s so important to do away with it, how about 75%? There should be a clear majority before we take rights away.

Burr

July 24th, 2009

He’s not saying it’s a good thing. He’s just saying it’s the system. I can respect that argument.

I don’t think what Maine and Washington did was necessarily a “new” law that could be vetoed. As a matter of practice and technicality yes, but pragmatically it was just finally recognizing their constitutional duty and ordering the bureaucracy to carry it out. That’s why I find it (subjectively) illegitimate to seek to rescind that order by a mere majority vote when the mandate comes from much higher.

RMB

July 24th, 2009

John Herr, I don’t think you understand the system.

DC has a law prohibiting putting any civil rights of LGBTs up for a vote.

In California, the big problem was that they were amending the constitution.

In Maine and Washington, it has nothing to do with my opinions on whether it is right or wrong. They have a system where any legislation enacted by the legislature during a certain immediate time-frame can be put up for a vote if they get X amount of signatures.

The system in place has nothing to do with anything other than it’s just what their state law says. The people’s veto in those states is not some systemic anti-LGBT anti-marriage equality bigotry written into state law. Recent legislation in those states being vetoed by the people is nothing new there.

You need to grasp the difference between problems in the system and problems with the people using it, and understand the differences in the systems in the first place.

I don’t think the system in Maine and Washington is bad at all. I think it’s quite a decent practice, actually. In our case, yes, it’s an annoying stumbling block, but you need to learn to hate the players, not the game. Petitions in those states cannot be used to undo laws that have already taken effect — that’s the point of the petitions: to try and stop the law from taking effect. John Herr, you mention taking rights away. There are no rights being taken away in Maine and Washington because there have been no rights granted yet. Again, that’s the point of the petitions.

I think the six justices on the California Supreme Court were being ridiculous in their ruling. What good is a Constitution and its protections if it can just be changed willy nilly by petition and majority vote? There, yes, they DID allow the system to enshrine anti-LGBT laws.

But you must understand, in Maine and Washington, with their peoples’ veto, it’s one of the rare times where the system of laws in place has nothing to do with being anti-LGBT. You just have to accept that it is what it is and hope the measures fail.

Burr

July 25th, 2009

I think the system is bad, and not just for LGBT issues.

It gives the average, uneducated voter the level of executive power over the government. It renders the governor utterly meaningless. It can be abused for all sorts of silly things and run the state into the ground (like California, which passed all sorts of spending initiatives, but also passed all sorts of restrictions on how they were supposed to pay for them! Ridiculous..)

It’s just not the way representative democracy works.

RMB

July 25th, 2009

The system in California is different from Maine and Washington. In California, the people can essentially ENACT any law EMBEDDED IN THEIR CONSTITUTION by petition and majority vote. (It’s utterly nuts, frankly.)

In Maine and Washington, it’s only for recent legislation. And if for some reason it’s repealed, the legislature is always welcome to keep passing it.

BobbiCW

July 25th, 2009

I’m against voter referendums because of how much they cost. In this economy it’s just not real bright to be spending money on things like this. On the bright side voter referendums on highly controversial issues might actually keep newspapers and TV stations in business a few extra months.

AJD

July 25th, 2009

It turns out they may have succeeded. They just turned in their signatures and claim to have about 138,000. That may not be the 150,000 they’re supposed to have, but they could still have enough.

Bruno

July 26th, 2009

There’s nothing inherently awful about a voter referendum, but the way it’s overused in California is ridiculous. And if one believes that LGBT rights should never be voted on, then people need to stop saying marriage equality should come from a legislature instead of a court. Civil rights should be the domain of the courts. In California, further measures need to be taken against the ability of a majority to overturn civil rights, though.

ragarth

July 27th, 2009

So, as a tactic the LGBT community can use at a later date, would it be an illegal or questionable tactic to start signing false names into these petitions? Are the checks for false signatures sufficient to catch the siggies or are they questionable enough that doing this might backfire?

ravenbiker

July 27th, 2009

Majority rules but one cannot depend on the majority to protect the rights of the minority.

Timothy (TRiG)

July 28th, 2009

If someone put a petition like these into my face (especially if they lied about it), I’d be tempted to sign it Micky Mouse. Wouldn’t you?

TRiG.

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