Today, in a huge vic­to­ry for Wash­ing­ton vot­ers and tax­pay­ers, Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee signed into law SB 5082, a North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute pri­or­i­ty bill spon­sored by Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Kud­er­er and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Amy Walen that lib­er­ates our gen­er­al elec­tion bal­lots from Tim Eyman’s push polls, which are anti-tax mes­sages mas­querad­ing as ref­er­en­da under the false label “advi­so­ry votes.”

The gov­er­nor’s endorse­ment of SB 5082 was the final step in its jour­ney from pro­posed vot­ing jus­tice leg­is­la­tion to ses­sion law. Five years of work by NPI and allies to replace Eyman’s push polls with truth­ful, accu­rate fis­cal infor­ma­tion that is con­tin­u­ous­ly updat­ed for vot­ers has now reached a suc­cess­ful conclusion.

SB 5082 is slat­ed to go into effect nine­ty days after ses­sion adjourn­ment, on July 23rd, 2023, which is in time for this year’s Novem­ber gen­er­al election.

That means we’ve already seen the last of Eyman’s push polls. They won’t be around this autumn when Wash­ing­to­ni­ans open up their bal­lots. Instead of see­ing anti-tax pro­pa­gan­da at or near the top, vot­ers will see can­di­date elec­tions and real bal­lot mea­sures only fol­low­ing the instruc­tions. That’s as it should be.

Our leg­is­la­tion was forged on the prin­ci­ple that the bal­lot is sacred. It’s the place where we make deci­sions about who should rep­re­sent us, what laws we should have, and what changes we’d like to see made to our plan of gov­ern­ment on occa­sion. The bal­lot is sim­ply not an appro­pri­ate place for polling, adver­tis­ing, or cam­paign-style mes­sag­ing. (Polling is best done sep­a­rate­ly, through sur­vey instru­ments that employ neu­tral­ly word­ed questionnaires.)

Imag­ine what the bal­lot would look like if every bill con­sid­ered by the Leg­is­la­ture in a giv­en year were sub­ject­ed to a fake ref­er­en­dum with prej­u­di­cial word­ing… or if polit­i­cal com­mit­tees were allowed to place ads right below the instruc­tions, in the prime real estate on the front of the bal­lot. That kind of degra­da­tion would result in an increas­ing­ly hor­ri­ble vot­ing expe­ri­ence, neg­a­tive­ly impact­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion and fur­ther endan­ger­ing the health of our republic.

Our research polling and our con­ver­sa­tions with vot­ers have always val­i­dat­ed the course we chart­ed many years ago when we start­ed putting this leg­is­la­tion togeth­er. At many junc­tures, we heard argu­ments (main­ly from Repub­li­can leg­is­la­tors) that our bill ought to be amend­ed to pre­serve “advi­so­ry votes” in some form. Mov­ing them to the back of the bal­lot was pro­posed. Alter­ing the word­ing was pro­posed. Autho­riz­ing them on even more top­ics was proposed.

We held firm and worked with our cham­pi­ons — Sen­a­tors Kud­er­er and Hunt, Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Walen and Ramos — to ensure the bill stayed true to its purpose.

If our leg­is­la­tion had been amend­ed as Repub­li­cans pro­posed, it would have devi­at­ed from its North Star of mak­ing vot­ing eas­i­er. With SB 5082, we are elim­i­nat­ing a bar­ri­er to par­tic­i­pat­ing in elec­tions. We’re tak­ing a stand against bad bal­lot design. We’re resolv­ing that bal­lots should­n’t become billboards.

As our bil­l’s intent sec­tion so elo­quent­ly explains:

The leg­is­la­ture finds that mak­ing the act of cast­ing a bal­lot as sim­ple as pos­si­ble will help pro­mote the free and equal elec­tions guar­an­teed by Arti­cle I, sec­tion 19 and Arti­cle VI, sec­tion 1 of the Wash­ing­ton state Con­sti­tu­tion. The leg­is­la­ture rec­og­nizes that trans­paren­cy and fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty are impor­tant to the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton, and that elec­tion admin­is­tra­tion and bal­lot design should reflect these long-held val­ues. The leg­is­la­ture fur­ther finds that the peo­ple right­ful­ly expect items on their bal­lots to be neu­tral­ly and accu­rate­ly word­ed. Final­ly, the leg­is­la­ture finds for the votes that Wash­ing­to­ni­ans cast to have mean­ing, the bal­lot must be lim­it­ed to can­di­date elec­tions that give the peo­ple the pow­er to choose their rep­re­sen­ta­tives or bal­lot mea­sures that deter­mine what laws and plan of gov­ern­ment the state and its local­i­ties shall have.

Our posi­tion has pre­vailed, and that’s a win for every­one.

Yes, every­one. Even right wing Repub­li­cans opposed to SB 5082 won today.

Peo­ple in Eyman’s camp will fer­vent­ly dis­agree with that state­ment now. But in time, per­haps at least some of them will rec­og­nize the mer­its of our legislation.

Many of their fel­low Repub­li­cans already do… like Sen­a­tor Brad Hawkins, who vot­ed for SB 5082, or for­mer Sen­a­tor Hans Zeiger, who gave a great speech for its orig­i­nal incar­na­tion four years ago, or retired Sec­re­tary of State Sam Reed, a leader in the Main­stream Repub­li­cans who enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly endorsed it.

These and oth­er Repub­li­cans get that sim­plic­i­ty and neu­tral­i­ty are good prin­ci­ples for our bal­lots. Less can be more, as the adage goes, and less can also be better.

Our bill does­n’t just save mon­ey. It saves time: vot­ers’ time, elec­tion work­ers’ time, activists’ time. And it upholds bedrock demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples. In an age of ram­pant mis­in­for­ma­tion and dis­in­for­ma­tion, what we’ve accom­plished is espe­cial­ly mean­ing­ful. My heart­felt thanks to every­one who stood with us and helped secure the votes need­ed to get this bill to Gov­er­nor Inslee so it could be signed today. You’ve done mil­lions of Wash­ing­ton vot­ers a great ser­vice. Mer­ci! Danke! Gracias!