Cost of signature collecting dooms some propositions

There are over 40 pending initiatives that could appear on the ballot this fall, including several that would affect the courts. But a lack of funding will ultimately stymie many of these efforts.

In fact, signature costs appear to have gone up again, meaning that it will probably take millions of dollars for most groups to even hope to qualify an effort. A lack of funding appears to have ended one effort already, that by the Civil Justice Association of California to qualify at least one of three measures targeting plaintiffs’ attorneys.

“That typically happens in the spring of an election year, when folks are trying to qualify for the November ballot, there’s a rush to hit the street and get as many signatures as you possibly can,” said Brian Maas, the lead proponent of the Fair Pay and Employer Accountability Act of 2022. “Some of the initiatives on the street are pretty well-heeled, and that drives the price up.”

Jamie Court, the president of Consumer Watchdog, said he’s heard the going rate is about $8 per signature. With 623,212 valid signatures needed to qualify an initiative, that’s a minimum cost of $5 million. A constitutional amendment requiring 997,139 signatures would require $8 million.

Many campaigns will spend far more than that. The tobacco industry-backed Californians for Fairness turned in more than a million signatures on Friday in its effort to qualify a referendum to overturn a state ban on flavored tobacco. The extra signatures help guarantee an initiative will qualify even if some percentage of signatures are invalid.

The Civil Justice Association of California said last week it was reevaluating three proposed initiatives that would cap attorney contingency fees at 20% of recovered damages.

“They pulled it from the printing press before they paid for one signature,” Court said. “They didn’t have the money. They reported $600,000 and it was going to cost like $10 million.”

The California Secretary of State’s website showed the group had raised $660,000. Maas’ group has raised almost $1.1 million. The effort has earned financial backing from the powerful California Chamber of Commerce. The group’s initiative would repeal a 2004 Private Attorney General Act that allows employees to recover penalties for suits they file on behalf of themselves and others, limiting the incentive to bring these cases.

Maas said Californians for Fair Pay got signature gatherers onto the streets weeks ago and hasn’t been paying $8 yet, but added his campaign will probably need to increase rates soon “to stay competitive.” The president of the California New Car Dealers Association said several big money initiatives are now hitting the street, including multiple ones dealing with online sports betting, leading to more competition to “get to the top of the pile.”

The chamber’s board also voted last month to back an effort by former GOP state legislator Sam Blakeslee to move the responsibility for writing ballot initiative summaries from the California attorney general to the secretary of state.

Community organizer Jai Hudson is at the other end of the campaign funding spectrum. He said he will probably need to rely on unpaid volunteers working with groups around the state to qualify the Elijah McClain Police Accountability Act. Named after an unarmed, 23-year-old Black man who died after being arrested in Colorado, it would change legal standards around qualified immunity and excessive force for police in California.

“I don’t think I could afford to pay anybody,” Hudson said.

Ballotpedia found that the eight initiatives that qualified for the 2020 general election ballot paid an average of $7.22. This was up from just $6.07 in 2018. The 2020 prices ranged from a low of $5.59 for Proposition 20, an unsuccessful effort to roll back several recent criminal sentence changes.

But Proposition 22 pulled up the average in 2020. It remains the most expensive initiative campaign in California history. A coalition of gig work companies led by Uber Inc. and others paid $10.37 per signature.

Paying less per signature can mean an initiative has a built-in base of support, but it doesn’t guarantee success. The three initiative campaigns that paid least per signature in 2020 all lost. Four of the five efforts that paid the most won.

Despite the costs, it’s all but guaranteed California voters will decide on several initiatives this fall. There’s one that could bring down the cost of gathering signatures. The California Initiative, Referendum and Recall Reform Act would allow measures to qualify using online electronic signatures.