Should it be easier for Pierce County voters to initiate or challenge laws?

The controversy that surrounded last year’s plan to build a $127 million county administration building continues to resonate in Pierce County elections.

Three measures on the Pierce County ballot can trace their support, at least indirectly, to backlash over the failed office-consolidation attempt. The proposals would amend the county charter to reduce the number of voter signatures needed to place initiatives and referendums on the ballot and would allow more time to clear up legal questions before the measures go to voters.

If adopted, Pierce County would have one of the lowest signature-gathering thresholds for initiatives among the seven Washington counties that grant local initiative and referendum powers, and the lowest threshold for referendums.

It was a citizen referendum last fall that dealt the final blow to county officials’ plans to build a new headquarters at the site of the former Puget Sound Hospital — but not before the county and two county residents tried to block the referendum in court.

Jerry Gibbs, the retired Gig Harbor activist who helped lead the campaign against the building, said the controversy helped raised the profile of the Charter Review Commission, the elected body that put the amendments on the ballot after meeting this year to consider changes to what amounts to the county’s constitution. As he noted, 88 people filed to run for 21 positions on the commission.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had that much interest in elective offices,” Gibbs said.

The charter currently sets the number of voter signatures needed for an initiative at 10 percent of the votes cast in the last race for Pierce County executive. The number of signatures to put a referendum on the ballot is 8 percent of the votes cast in the last executive election.

Charter Amendment 41 would cut the initiative signature requirement to 8 percent, and Charter Amendment 42 would reduce the number of signatures needed for a referendum to 4 percent. If those requirements had been in effect this year, initiative sponsors would have needed to collect 24,346 signatures to put their measure on the ballot, rather than 30,433. The signature count for a referendum would have dropped by half to 12,173.

Charter commission member Grant Pelesky, a donor to the referendum campaign, sponsored the proposed amendments on signature counts. Twenty of the 21 commission members voted to send them to the ballot.

Opponents note many petition campaigns aren’t the grassroots efforts they once were. They argue the present rules create the right balance between guaranteeing genuine citizen oversight and protecting against frivolous and ill-considered citizen law-making efforts.

“The County Council may not be perfect — what elected body is? — but they are well-paid professionals, hired to do this job for us. The initiative process should be reserved for rare instances when causes have widespread support,” said Katie Baird, a University of Washington economics professor who co-authored an opposition statement in the county voters’ pamphlet.

But former Pierce County councilman Tim Farrell and other amendment supporters said new restrictions on where signatures can be gathered have made collecting sufficient signatures more expensive and difficult. They note that Pierce County has not had a successful initiative campaign since the charter was approved 36 years ago.

The proposed changes simply would align the county’s signature requirements with those for statewide ballot measures, Farrell said.

The amendments could have saved the anti-building campaign some money. It spent about $50,000 to hire signature gatherers who secured some 28,000 of the 38,000 signatures the referendum backers submitted to County Auditor Julie Anderson. Volunteers gathered the other 10,000.

The campaign also paid lawyers to defend against legal challenges. Under Charter Amendment 43, the campaign might have recovered some of that money if the county had not dropped its suit before a judge ruled.

That amendment also would increase the amount of time the prosecuting attorney has to write a ballot title from 10 days to 15. During that period, the prosecutor would be required to issue an opinion about whether his lawyers believe the referendum is legal.

That opinion could give referendum supporters a chance to rewrite their referendum or to prepare for a legal challenge by the county.

The clock on the 120-day signature gathering period would stop for up to 45 days while legal challenges were pending. The amendment also provides that a judge could award the referendum sponsors legal fees if they prevailed in court.

During the legal challenge to the office building referendum campaign, signature gathering slowed significantly because the public and volunteers were unsure whether the referendum would pass legal muster, Gibbs said. A lawsuit could pose doom for a less popular measure and a less energetic campaign, he said.

Opponents of Amendment 43 argue this year’s isolated incident doesn’t warrant changing the county charter. The Committee Against Changing Our Charter for Confusing and Unnecessary Laws wrote in the voters’ pamphlet that petitioners could be intimidated by a prosecuting attorney determining their measure is not permissable, and that a judge is the only person who can truly determine legality.

This story was originally published October 20, 2016 at 2:53 PM with the headline "Should it be easier for Pierce County voters to initiate or challenge laws?."