ballot initiatives

(Runtime :56)In NWPB’s recent election survey, many of you requested information about Washington’s ballot initiatives. With that in mind, here’s a quick…

(Runtime :53) In NWPB’s recent election survey, many of you requested information about Washington’s ballot initiatives. With that in mind, here’s a quick…

There are no statewide initiative measures on the ballot this November in Oregon and Washington state. That’s a change from usual, but voters around the region are casting ballots on a variety of newsworthy local initiatives.

Legislation making it more difficult to get initiatives or referendums on ballots is heading to the governor, who has hinted of a possible veto. The House voted 51-18 on Wednesday to approve the measure backers said is needed because the current process favors urban voters. It passed the Senate 26-9 last month. Those numbers are enough to overcome a veto.

An Idaho House panel approved legislation Monday making it more difficult to get initiatives or referendums on ballots in what is widely seen as a rural vs. urban issue.

Tim Eyman, the watch salesman-turned-antitax folk hero whose initiative campaigns have bedeviled state and local governments across Washington for decades, will no longer be allowed to have any financial control over political committees, under a judge’s ruling Wednesday that blasted him for using donor’s contributions to line his own pocket.

The U.S. Supreme Court has put a halt to the Reclaim Idaho K-12 initiative drive. Thursday’s ruling represents a legal victory for Gov. Brad Little and Secretary of State Lawerence Denney, who requested a stay of a lower court ruling allowing Reclaim Idaho to gather online signatures for its “Invest in Idaho” initiative.

Gov. Brad Little still wants to see Idaho schools reopen next month — but he’s not sure that can happen in the state’s coronavirus hotspots. “I think the answer is, it depends,” Little said during a news conference Thursday morning, one day after the state reported its highest one-day death toll from the coronavirus outbreak.

It will be up to the Ninth Circuit to decide whether Reclaim Idaho can continue gathering online signatures in a final attempt to get its K-12 initiative on November’s ballot. Reclaim Idaho suspended face-to-face signature gathering on March 18 — a few days after the state reported its first cases of coronavirus.

Idaho Gov. Brad Little wants the U.S. Supreme Court to stop Reclaim Idaho from gathering signatures online, as the group tries to get its education funding initiative on November’s ballot.