Seattle voters will not get to a chance to weigh in on the city’s new $15 an hour minimum wage increase this November, after two petitions failed to get enough validated signatures.
A letter from Sherril Huff, the King County elections director, to Seattle City Clerk Monica Simmons was sent on July 22 to inform city officials that petitions asking for the minimum wage hike to be on the November ballot did not meet the city’s requirements.
Two groups, Forward Seattle and Save Our Choice, submitted a collective 19,469 signatures on petitions to take the minimum wage hike to a popular vote in early July. The signatures then moved through the King County signature validation process, which included making sure the listed person is a registered voter that lives within the city limits of Seattle and comparing the signature on the petition to the one on file with the person’s voter registration.
The groups had to collectively get 16,510 validated signatures to get the referendum on the ballot in November, but the letter said they were short by 1,237 signatures.
The signatures considered invalid were primarily due to the signatories living outside the city limits or not being registered to vote at all.
Craig Keller, the co-founder of Save Our Choice, said the results were “unfortunate,” but he is not giving up yet.
Keller said he is trying to collect signatures for a city charter amendment that would prohibit wage regulation by the city. He would have to collect 30,957 validated signatures from registered Seattle voters to make that a reality, a task he admits he might not have the financial backing to do.
It is more likely that Forward Seattle and other likeminded initiatives will try to look statewide to prevent any local regulation of wage, Keller said.
A statewide petition and subsequent vote would make it the state’s job to set the minimum wage and would cancel out the $15 minimum wage set in SeaTac and Seattle.
Both the charter amendment and the statewide effort would push a vote back to November 2015 at the earliest.
The jump to a $15 hourly rate makes Seattle’s minimum wage the highest of any major city in the country. It was rushed through the city council earlier this year, concerning many business owners.
Under the current terms, businesses with fewer than 500 workers must raise wages to the $15 mark in the next seven years, an increase of more than 60 percent from Seattle’s current minimum wage of $9.32 an hour. Larger businesses must meet that level within three years, or four years if they provide health insurance.
Seattle Minimum Wage Petition Docs
