Center Square editor digs into ‘initiative killer’ bill backlash, daycare fraud investigation

As the Washington legislative session continues, a certain bill labeled the new “initiative killer” drew significant opposition this week, with roughly 10,000 signatures against it.

Carleen Johnson, The Center Square’s Washington associate editor, sat in on the sessions in Olympia and provided an inside look at what SB 5973 is and how it stood before Washington legislators.

“This bill is not really the same as the initiative killer attempt that they trotted out last year, but this one would require somebody who has an initiative idea to go out and gather 1,000 signatures,” Johnson said on “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio. “That’s the first hurdle. It would also say that you can pay signature gatherers by the hour, so it wouldn’t prohibit paid signature gathering, but you can’t pay per signature.

“The contention of the bill sponsor, Javier Valdez, and those who spoke in support of it, is that those folks out there gathering signatures are under too much pressure if they’re paid per signature, and that can lead to fraud,” Johnson continued.

KIRO host John Curley asked if there was any evidence of fraud from these signature-gathering events.

“No. The Secretary of State himself, Steve Hobbs, who testified against it, as did former Secretary of State Sam Reed, said the same thing. They’ve got checks and balances in place,” Johnson responded. “They check the signatures; if there’s anything questionable, it gets set aside, maybe tossed out. No evidence of fraud, but the assertion from the bill sponsor and those who testified in support of it is that it’s just going to ensure that we have integrity and transparency in our initiative.”

Johnson revealed that about 10,000 people signed in opposition to the bill, with roughly 1,200 signing in support.

Looking at WA’s daycare fraud

Johnson also spoke about her recent reporting of the Somali-run daycare centers in Washington, where she had gone door-to-door looking for answers, and stated that “if it’s a taxpayer-subsidized daycare, we have every right to knock on the door and say, are you a legit operation?”

“Yeah, they didn’t like that; they suggested that it was aggressive, harassing reporters who were door-knocking on Somali-run home daycares, which I did in my community in Federal Way, to ask questions if there is a daycare here,” Johnson said. “We found out from DCYF that only 23% of daycares are audited on an annual basis, and that audit is often self-reporting. They just say, ‘I still watch six kids a day, I should still be eligible for those subsidies.’ I don’t know how you call that an audit.”

Curley noted that there are more than 7,000 daycares in Washington, with officials reporting roughly 100 inspectors. Regarding Johnson’s mention of 23% of daycares being audited annually, Curley asked whether they’re due to complaints or randomly show up unannounced.

“They say that they do annual inspections on all of them, unannounced inspections, but they even conceded in that work session that oftentimes they go, and if they don’t find any kids, then they’ll do a follow-up,” Johnson said. “My question was then, do you go back the next day and ask, ‘Why do you have no kids?’ or do you wait a week? How does that scenario look? I didn’t get any questions answered, and I was disappointed, honestly.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

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