Plans scrapped for veto referendum

OLYMPIA – As Grange lawyers head to the state Supreme Court this week to challenge Gov. Gary Locke’s Montana-style primary, another critic has abandoned efforts to force a public vote on the governor’s unusual use of the veto.

Richard Pope, a Bellevue attorney who was the Republican nominee for attorney general in 1996 and 2000, said Wednesday he isn’t turning in signatures for the referendum challenge he’d hoped to mount.

Wednesday was the deadline for referendum sponsors to submit about 100,000 signatures. The only group that met the deadline was one critical of a new charter school bill. Charter opponents turned in more than 150,000 signatures, likely enough to qualify for the November ballot.

Pope said the expected backing for his challenge did not materialize and that the 90 days he was supposed to have to collect signatures was only half that, once he waited for the governor to act and for ballot-title challenges to occur.

He said he will support the Grange, which backs a rival plan that is similar to the blanket primary that the federal courts declared unconstitutional. If the Grange doesn’t win its challenge in the state Supreme Court, the group will press ahead with an initiative to substitute a Top 2 primary system.

The governor, with the backing of the political parties and a number of legislators, used his veto pen to overhaul an unusual primary bill that lawmakers sent him in March.

The bill actually included both rival systems lawmakers had debated: A Top 2 plan, listed as the preferred system, would have continued to allow crossover voting, and would have advanced the top two vote-getters to the general election.

The Legislature also tacked on the so-called Montana Plan as a backup. That system creates separate party ballots and requires a voter to pick one.