H-3805.2
SUBSTITUTE HOUSE BILL 2477
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State of Washington | 64th Legislature | 2016 Regular Session |
By House State Government (originally sponsored by Representatives Fitzgibbon, Cody, and Bergquist)
READ FIRST TIME 02/05/16.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:
Sec. 1. RCW 29A.24.091 and 2009 c 106 s 2 are each amended to read as follows:
(1) Subject to subsection (2) of this section, a filing fee of ten dollars ((shall)) must accompany the declaration of candidacy for any office with a fixed annual salary of one thousand dollars or less; a filing fee equal to one percent of the annual salary of the office at the time of filing ((shall)) must accompany the declaration of candidacy for any office with a fixed annual salary of more than one thousand dollars per annum. No filing fee need accompany a declaration of candidacy for precinct committee officer or any office for which compensation is on a per diem or per meeting attended basis.
((A candidate who lacks sufficient assets or income at the time of filing to pay the filing fee required by this section shall submit with his or her declaration of candidacy a filing fee petition. The petition shall contain not less than a number of signatures of registered voters equal to the number of dollars of the filing fee. The signatures shall be of voters registered to vote within the jurisdiction of the office for which the candidate is filing.))
When the candidacy is for:
(((1))) (a) A statewide office, the United States senate, or the United States house of representatives, the fee ((shall)) must be paid to the secretary of state;
(((2))) (b) A legislative or judicial office that includes territory from more than one county, the fee ((shall)) must be paid to the secretary of state for equal division between the treasuries of the counties comprising the district;
(((3))) (c) A legislative or judicial office that includes territory from only one county, the fee ((shall)) must be paid to the county auditor;
(((4))) (d) A city or town office, the fee ((shall)) must be paid to the county auditor who ((shall)) must transmit it to the city or town clerk for deposit in the city or town treasury.
(2) Any candidate may submit, by the close of regular business hours on the Friday three weeks before Memorial Day, a filing fee petition in lieu of paying the filing fee required by subsection (1) of this section. The candidate must file the petition in the form prescribed in RCW 29A.24.101 at the same location required for candidates to pay the filing fee. The petition must contain not less than a number of signatures of registered voters within the jurisdiction of the office for which the candidate is filing that is equal to the number of dollars of the filing fee. Sec. 2. RCW 29A.24.111 and 2006 c 206 s 5 are each amended to read as follows:
(1) Filing fee petitions must be reviewed and accepted or rejected by the filing officer no later than noon on the Wednesday two weeks before Memorial Day. Filing fee petitions may be rejected for the following reasons:
(((1))) (a) The petition is not in the proper form;
(((2))) (b) The petition clearly bears insufficient signatures;
(((3))) (c) The petition is not accompanied by a declaration of candidacy;
(((4))) (d) The time within which the petition and the declaration of candidacy could have been filed has expired.
(2) If the petition is accepted, the officer with whom it is filed ((shall)) must canvass the signatures contained on it and ((shall)) must reject the signatures of those persons who are not registered voters and the signatures of those persons who are not registered to vote within the jurisdiction of the office for which the filing fee petition is filed. He or she ((shall)) must additionally reject any signature that appears on the filing fee petitions of two or more candidates for the same office and ((shall)) must also reject, each time it appears, the name of any person who signs the same petition more than once.
(3)(a) If the officer with whom the petition is filed refuses to certify the petition as bearing sufficient valid signatures, and the number of valid signatures is not less than ninety-five percent of the number of required signatures, the officer must, by noon on the Wednesday two weeks before Memorial Day, provide notice by email and telephone to the candidate and include the number of rejected signatures less than the sufficient number of valid signatures. Within two business days of the notice, the candidate must pay a filing fee in dollars equal to the number of rejected signatures identified in the notice.
(b) The supplemental petition must be accepted or rejected and canvassed in the same manner as provided in subsections (1) and (2) of this section.
(4) If the officer with whom the petition is filed refuses to accept the petition or refuses to certify the petition as bearing sufficient valid signatures, the person filing the petition may appeal that action to the superior court. The application for judicial review ((shall)) must take precedence over other cases and matters and ((shall)) must be speedily heard and determined.
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