Seattle Times Op-Ed: WA lawmakers should hold hearings on initiatives before they go to a vote
A Seattle Times opinion by Jackson Maynard, Executive Director of Citizen Action Defense Fund, argues that Washington’s state Legislature ought to hold public hearings on citizen-led ballot initiatives rather than letting them bypass legislative scrutiny and head straight to voters this fall.
Washington’s Constitution does not treat voters as spectators — it recognizes them as lawmakers. Yet legislative leadership is acting as if one of the people’s most powerful tools — the initiative process — is optional.
It is not.
Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen and House Speaker Laurie Jinkins have publicly stated they have no plans to hold hearings on two voter initiatives, IL26-001 and IL26-638, and will send them directly to the November ballot. Those were signed by nearly half a million Washingtonians and certified under state law. Under Washington’s Constitution, they should be placed at the front of the legislative line. (One initiative is to expand parental rights in public schools and the other would bar transgender student athletes from girls’ sports.)
Instead, they are being pushed aside and disregarded — a public slight to Washingtonians across the state.
Article II, Section 1(a) of the Washington Constitution is clear: Initiatives to the Legislature “shall take precedence over all other measures” and must be either enacted or rejected — not ignored, and not slow-walked. Not buried under hundreds of routine policy bills.
Precedence means priority. It means first.