Washington lawmakers have introduced SB 5973 (and its companion bill HB 2259) a bill that significantly restructures how citizens can use the initiative and referendum process. The bill sponsors frame it as an “integrity” measure, the real-world effect is unmistakable: SB 5973 adds early barriers, legal risk, and bureaucratic friction designed to discourage citizens from challenging the Legislature.
Over the past several years, groups like Let’s Go Washington have repeatedly used the initiative process to push back on policies enacted by a one-party Legislature. That success has proven politically inconvenient for democrats and SB 5973 appears to be the response.
What SB 5973 does:
SB 5973 requires initiative sponsors to collect 1,000 verified signatures before the Secretary of State will issue a ballot title. This is not a minor procedural tweak. Those signatures must be canvassed and verified by the state, requiring time, staff capacity, and upfront investment.
Critically, this forces initiative sponsors to spend money, mobilize volunteers, and commit to language before they know the final ballot title they will be legally bound to defend. Ballot titles shape public perception, messaging, fundraising, and legal strategy. Shifting this requirement to the front of the process is a structural disadvantage, especially for citizen-led or grassroots efforts.
The bill also prohibits paying signature gatherers based on the number of signatures collected, adding new compliance complexity and cost. On its own, this may sound reasonable. However, it disproportionately affects high-volume initiative campaigns and increases reliance on legal teams, formal contracts, and risk management, resources everyday citizens often lack.
SB 5973 goes further by authorizing private citizens to bring civil lawsuits against initiative sponsors or signature-gathering entities for compensation violations. Penalties can reach $10,000 per violation, plus attorney’s fees. This dramatically expands litigation risk during tight campaign timelines and opens the door to nuisance or politically motivated lawsuits. The chilling effect doesn’t require fraud, only the threat of legal distraction.
Implications for Citizen-Led Initiatives
Washington’s initiative system exists precisely because the Legislature does not always reflect the will of the people. When citizens successfully use that system, especially repeatedly, the political response is usually not persuasion, but regulation. Washington Democrats often change the rules when they don’t like the way the game is going.
SB 5973 does not ban initiatives outright. Instead, it places bureaucratic toll booths at the very front gate: early signature thresholds, expanded state gatekeeping, heightened legal exposure, and increased costs before a campaign can even begin.
The bill also quietly expands the Secretary of State’s role as an early gatekeeper, giving the executive branch greater influence over which initiatives ever make it out of the starting blocks. Even if exercised neutrally, concentrating that discretion earlier reduces citizen leverage and increases institutional control.
Notably, SB 5973 does not distinguish between bad-faith serial filings and legitimate, persistent use of the initiative process. Persistence itself is treated as a problem to be managed. Citizen initiatives are no longer framed as a right to be exercised, but as an activity that must be justified.
Perhaps most telling, SB 5973 attempts to solve a problem existing law already addresses. Washington already criminalizes signature fraud, invalidates improper signatures, and conducts verification and audits. The bill does not point to a demonstrated failure of those safeguards. When lawmakers add restrictions without evidence that current protections are insufficient, citizens should ask whether the goal is integrity or attrition.
Enter HB 2260 and How it Fits Into the Bigger Picture
SB 5973 is not moving in isolation.
At the same time lawmakers are advancing SB 5973 (and its House companion, HB 2259), they are also pushing HB 2260, another bill that tightens rules around citizen initiatives, this time under the banner of signature “accuracy” and “accountability.”
HB 2260 focuses on how signatures are collected and verified. It requires petition circulators to sign declarations under penalty of false swearing and tightens requirements around voter address information, making it easier for signatures to be rejected if paperwork is imperfect. Supporters argue this guards against fraud, even though Washington already has criminal penalties, verification processes, and invalidation thresholds in place.
On its own, HB 2260 might be framed as a technical cleanup bill. But when viewed alongside SB 5973, a clear pattern emerges.
SB 5973 raises early barriers before an initiative can even receive a ballot title, requiring verified signatures up front, expanding litigation risk, and increasing executive gatekeeping. HB 2260 then tightens the back end of the process by increasing the likelihood that signatures are rejected and exposing campaigns to additional compliance risk.
In other words:
- SB 5973 makes it harder to start an initiative
- HB 2260 makes it harder to survive once you do
Together, these bills do not eliminate the initiative process, but they compress it from both ends, increasing cost, complexity, and legal exposure at every stage. This layered approach allows lawmakers to claim each bill is modest while achieving a cumulative effect that discourages citizen-led challenges altogether.
Notably, neither bill is narrowly tailored to address documented failures in existing law. Washington already verifies signatures, invalidates improper petitions, and penalizes fraud. What has changed is not the integrity of the process but the effectiveness of citizen initiatives in challenging legislative priorities.
Bottom line:
SB 5973 is not about protecting voters. It is about protecting lawmakers from voters.
By raising early hurdles, increasing legal risk, and discouraging participation before ideas can even reach the public, this bill weakens the initiative process without openly abolishing it.
Citizens should be deeply wary any time the government decides the people are using their constitutional tools too effectively. CLW opposes SB 5973. We will be tracking this bill throughout the session and will alert you when you can take action. You can also sign up to get alerts for SB 5973 here: SB 5973 Washington State Legislature or HB 2259 Washington State Legislature
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