It was a role reversal of sorts Tuesday night, with supporters of Initiative 591 playing the victim. To hear those gun rights advocates tell it, their grass-roots effort at curbing governmental overreach was sabotaged by the big-spending bullies in the Initiative 594 campaign. That, they say, is the takeaway from a first batch of election results that showed I-594 leading by a comfortable 60-40 percent split, while I-591 was failing, 45.4 percent to 54.6 percent.
“I think what we’re seeing tonight is the result of a really well financed campaign against a much less financed grass-roots effort,” Dave Workman, senior editor at The Gun Mag and communications director for the Citizens Committee to Keep and Bear Arms, told Seattle Weekly. “Money is a powerful political weapon.”
What’s ironic, of course, is that I-591 was written to prevent Washington from enacting background check legislation unless a federal standard is established, while I-594 will mandate firearm background checks on all guns sales and transfers. The respective campaigns, and the results we saw last night, are not indicative of how it usually works, and on which side the big money typically falls. Traditionally, gun control movements have struggled to take on the all-powerful gun lobby and its NRA-funded attacks, while movements like I-594 are usually the ones holding the grass-roots bake sales.
But not this year. In becoming the first state to enact mandatory universal background checks by popular vote, Washington flipped the script.
Governor Jay Inslee whips up the I-594 crowd at Seattle’s Edgewater Hotel. Photo by Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren
The Workmans of the world have a point, though, at least when it comes to the finances. I-594 was backed by Bill and Melinda Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Ballmer, Nick Hanauer, and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, to name but a handful of uber-rich folks who threw cash behind the initiative. By October I-594 had raised in excess of $7 million, while I-591 had barely reached the $1 million mark. A flood of pro-594 TV and print ads inundated voters in the lead-up to this year’s vote. What impact they had is anyone’s guess, but there’s no question the I-594 campaign had a lot more money to play with. Workman said the result—if the early results hold—will show that voters were tricked into passing a law they don’t understand.
“I think some people may be in for kind of shock,” he said. “ I don’t think a lot of people understand right now that these background checks are going to apply to loans of firearms, or gifts of firearms. That’s something that we’re going to have to watch unfold as we cross that horizon.”
Still, after watching the gun lobby dominate the discourse over the last decade-plus, writing check after check in states across the country to prevent gun control legislation from being enacted, those who fought to pass I-594 in Washington weren’t exactly sympathetic to the claims of economic disparity or deception leveled by their adversaries.
“Goodness no!” said Zach Silk, campaign manager for Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility, when asked whether I-594 won because it had money on its side. “[The vote] is a reflection of the shift in the conversation in this country. Basically, the gun lobby has no answer for gun violence. … At the end of the day, people knew where they wanted to be.”
I-594 supporters are stoked about the early returns. Photo by Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren
For the gun control movement, the question now becomes: Will other states follow Washington’s lead. While politicians have largely avoided gun control like the plague, and will almost certainly continue to do so, what the success of I-594 may prove is that a strong enough offensive can equalize, and even overcome, the gun lobby’s stranglehold.
Or at least that’s the hope.
“People want, demand and will vote for common sense gun policy,” said Geoff Potter, communications director for the I-594 campaign. “What we know now is when you take this issue out to the halls of legislative power, and put the choice in the hands of the people, that the people will vote for commonsense gun legislation.
“I think what the people of Washington have done tonight sets a clear example for people in states all over our country,” Potter concluded. “There’s no precedence for this. Tonight is that precedence.”
As Potter and the rest of the I-594 supporters celebrate at Seattle’s Edgewater Hotel, I-591 backers, gathered across Lake Washington in a Bellevue, began licking their wounds and searching for signs of hope.
“We had a huge victory in Colorado that should allow us to repeal unpopular gun laws that were passed last year,” said Alan Gottlieb, the driving force behind I-591 and Chair of the Protect Our Rights Coalition. “We had a great victory in Alabama to ensure that gun ownership is treated as a fundamental right and we’re hoping a flip of the Senate will finally allow us to push a programmed agenda through.”
Adding quickly before dashing off to another TV interview, Gottlieb added, “In the big picture, the only sad result from tonight is in Washington State, but we’ll bounce back.”
Patrick Hutchison contributed to this report.
mdriscoll@seattleweekly.com
