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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Eye On Olympia

High court weighs yanking I-1029 from the ballot…

It's not what I said, it's what I meant.

That, in essence, was the case made Thursday in the state's highest court by proponents of a ballot measure that would require more paid training for home health-care workers.

In what could turn out to be a very expensive glitch, a Service Employees Intentional Union local and its allies spent months and more than $450,000 to put Initiative 1029 on the fall ballot, only to discover at the last minute that some wrong wording in the text could derail the entire effort.

The petitions signed by hundreds of thousands of voters wrongly say that it's a proposal for state lawmakers, rather than straight to voters.

“You've got to admit, your folks made a bit of a mistake here,” Chief Justice Gerry Alexander told a lawyer for the initiative's backers.

“And that's all it was,” responded attorney Mike Subit.

Sitting in the gallery,



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