Be careful what you sign!
The Ninth Circuit Court, in an extremely terse opinion, has reversed a lower court ruling that the Washington State Secretary of State could not release the names of people who signed Referendum 71, the proposal to roll back recognition of homosexual unions.
My own terse opinion is that the Ninth Circuit has set in motion actions that either will lead to a state legislative fix (disallowing the publication of initiative and referendum names in the future) or it permanently will chill the tradition of direct democracy in Washington and other supposedly progressive states in a fashion that many of those celebrating this decision have not bothered to consider.
As a former state Secretary of State and a former Director of the U. S. Census Bureau I cannot imagine anything more sure to deter participation in the initiative and referendum process than the threat that one's signature may be made public. No, it is not the same as voting, but neither is jury decision-making or filling out a Census form. Think what would happen to participation in the Census if one's information could be made public. (It can be, but only after 70 years!) And as in those other cases of civic participation, the government should be eager to assure participants that their actions will not lead to the danger of harassment or public notoriety.
Maybe the Initiative and Referendum petitions from now on should have a "Warning" label on them that "Signing this list is a political activity and can result in publication of your name." After all, ordinary people are now advised that their privacy is to be set aside in the same way that politicians' privacy was set aside years ago.
I personally think the initiative and referendum process is overused in Washington State and elsewhere. But this solution, unless reversed on appeal, is a perverse way to deal with such a defect.
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