Sensible Washington is pleased to announce that Jim Kenny, a candidate for Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney, has endorsed I-1068, which would legalize marijuana use, possession and cultivation for Washington State citizens 18 years and older. Kenny, who works as a prosecutor for the office of Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes, is endorsed by the Snohomish County Democrats in his race for Prosecuting Attorney.
“It’s flattering to be endorsed by a candidate for public office, especially one involving law enforcement,” said Philip Dawdy, I-1068’s campaign director and an initiative co-author. Kenny is the first candidate for public office to endorse the initiative, which currently is in its final month of signature gathering to reach its goal of 320,000 signatures by July 2. I-1068 is an all-volunteer effort.
“Snohomish County voters have a clear choice for prosecutor,” said Douglas Hiatt, I-1068’s main author and campaign chair. “Kenny’s endorsement speaks well for his grasp of the complex issues facing county leaders in these difficult economic times.”
While doorbelling, Kenny says he has heard from numerous Snohomish County voters that they consider marijuana legalization an important issue.
I-1068 has also been endorsed by the Libertarian Party of Washington, NORML, Seattle Police Chief (Ret.) Norm Stamper, the King County Democratic Central Committee, the Whatcom County Democrats, the 23rd, 30th, 37th, 39th and 41st Legislative District Democrats and former State Rep. Toby Nixon (R-Kirkland).
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I was at Pike’s Place market yesterday. It was beautiful and crowded, and there was no one there petitioning for i-1068. There were some petitioners for privatizing liquor that were getting tons of signatures. This seems like an obvious place to be petitioning on nice days!
about 1800 give or take.
well , I am hopefull but if you do not get it on the ballot .How soon can we retry? can we reuse the same signatures ? can u give us the lowdown on the process. also It really felt like we were not very orginized IMO >why didn’t we have aclu full support? If this doesnt go through do you think we have a better network of support? Lots of questions but my main question is how soon if this doesnt go through can we start trying again.I have plans for next time from mailing bussinesses blank forms and a few others like what jorge said about handing out blank forms to the people we collect signatures froms.thanks for reading
Ok guys, here’s my very best attempt at math, although I should note here that I failed calculus.
We need 320,000 sigs. Subtract the 100,000 we know we already have, the 12,000 we got at Folklife, and another (highly speculative) 8,000ish that we’ve probably gotten since then. Now we need 200,000.
Now let’s say each volunteer decides to chip in and get 100 signatures. That’s 5 petition sheets per volunteer. 2000 volunteers could pull that together. We’ve got less than 4 weeks left, and it’s very easy to collect 25 signatures in a week. I’ve seen people pull in more than that at one event. And, I know that there are volunteers who have gotten over 1,000 signatures because I’ve met some of them and they’re awesome, but 100 sigs is a very obtainable goal.
This is extremely possible to get on the ballot, we’ve just all got to chip in. I’ve set a goal of 500, and I don’t think I’ll have much trouble getting there. How much time do you think you can commit to a cause you believe in this strongly? There are dozens of events between now and July 2nd as well as street corners, campuses, and grocery stores, so GET OUT THERE AND GET IT DONE!
Disclaimer: I have absolutely no idea what the actual count is and all of the above is baseless speculation, but the take home message is this is definitely possible.
How many volunteers do we have?
Did I say “hundreds” of volunteers? I meant to say thousands!
The simple answer is this: there are more and more signatures every single day! If anyone is discouraged by the “100,000″ that was posted recently, remember that that was posted two weeks ago. I’ll admit that I’d like to know too, and I get asked by others who sign, but I think that’s secondary to our primary goal of gathering valid voter signatures.
Even an hour or two of your time in a semi-populated area can garner a sheet full of signatures. Several hours of your time can get you over 100. Multiply that by hundreds of volunteers doing that for the final push, and you’ve got yourself a spot for I-1068 on the November ballot!
im doing my part. i just wanted a simple answer to a simple question.thanx for the opinions though.
what blahzay meant to say is that if we all give up and sit on our hands like him/her it won’t get on the ballot. or we could give it our all and see if we can change the world.
that 12,000 signature could of been 100,000 if they were handed forms after signing .
what about with every signature you collect you/we hand out a blank signature form to that person who in turn possibly gets a few more.thats more bang for the buck.
I agree with David, it’s ridiculous to say we can’t get it qualified, and if you think that and aren’t doing anything to help you’re pretty much part of the problem (sorry for sounding so frank). If we’re in a position where people running for a large office are just now endorsing us then obviously we have a chance because even if the majority favor legalization he’s still taking somewhat of a political risk to support us. We just got over 12,000 at Folklife and the month of June has just started and we have a ton of big events coming.
If anything we should be more pumped than ever, especially with the new polling showing 52% in favor and only 35% against, a 17% difference. Everyone’s talking about California but there most recent polling shows them at 49% to 41% which is still a comfortable lead, but we have a 9% large cushion. If this doesn’t get you excited to get involved and play your part I’m not sure what will. If everyone puts in the effort we can get this done, and if we do, we’ll easily get it passed.
blahzay sounds more like a saboteur than a volunteer. The 100,000 figure is from two weeks ago and seems to be pretty much what we had before people for other petitions were even starting to collect signatures. People have been gathering more signatures since then including at the big Folklife event. The weather is improving. There are other events coming up (e.g., Mason County Forest Festival, June 3-6) but the main thing is for people to just get out and gather signatures. Stand outside a post office, go to a mall or big box store (don’t delay reserving time where that needs to be done), ask your friends and neighbors, be on downton sidewalks where people are passing by, carry the petition around with you whenever you can, try to recruit more volunteers from some of the people who sign the petition, keep voter registration forms with you and copies of the ACLU pamphlet about the change in Felon Voting Rights Restoration law that took effect last year. Make signature gathering part of your daily life, not only a big event or group effort thing. I usually get more signatures than mail when I go to the post office and I pick up some signatures when I’m just out shopping or whatever and people see me carrying the petition. They add up.
When I see a message like this posted to discourage people from acting, I wonder if it’s from someone worried that I-1068 will qualify and pass. It might be from someone who’s discouraged or as the nym implies someone who doesn’t care and has nothing better to do than troll. If we sit on our hands the initiative won’t qualify, if we hustle it should qualify. We’ve already done well enough to be influential and the more signatures we get the more influential the effort will be so no further effort is wasted. But settling for being influential isn’t our goal. Qualifying I-1068 for the ballot and passing it is our goal and it’s attainable. In November I want to be voting for I-1068 but if I’m not able to I’m not going to be sitting around thinking it missed the ballot by a 183 signatures because I got foolish in early June and quit petitioning.
it was at like 100,000……. that leaves us only 220,000 to go in less than a month (basicaly its a no go, dont believe the false hope BS)
HOW ABOUT AN ESTIMATE???
is there an official count yet?
Alright, good point. But he’s not an enemy by any means because he came out in favor of legalization in general. It’s helpful.
Mayor McGinn has not taken a public position on 1068.
And Seattle mayor McGinn!!!!
http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/archives/188734.asp