The bill amends chapter 29A.72 RCW and adds new sections to require a demonstration of support before certain initiative and referendum filing steps and to limit how signature gatherers may be paid. It requires a person proposing an initiative or referendum to file with the secretary of state a legible copy of the measure, an affidavit that the sponsor is a registered voter, the filing fee, and a petition with at least 1,000 legal voter signatures that include each signer’s name and the address, city, and county where registered. Signature sheets used for the 1,000-signature petition must meet RCW 29A.72.100 requirements (except title inclusion), and the secretary of state must verify and canvass those signatures before submitting the proposed measure to the code reviser and before assigning a serial number; the secretary may use statistical sampling under RCW 29A.72.230 and must adopt rules for the verification process. The bill creates a new prohibition and enforcement mechanism: it prohibits providing or receiving money or other consideration for signature gathering when compensation is based on the number of signatures obtained (but allows compensation not tied to signature counts), and it creates a civil private right of action brought in the name of the state for persons who have reason to believe that prohibition has been violated. Civil remedies include a maximum civil penalty of $10,000 per violation, recovery of reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs for a prevailing plaintiff, and a court-authorized fee award to a defendant if a plaintiff’s action is dismissed as frivolous or brought in bad faith. Citizen actions must be filed in superior court in specified venues and commenced within two years of the alleged violation. The bill also changes procedural steps involving the code reviser and secretary of state: the sponsor must submit the measure to the code reviser before a serial number is assigned, the assistant code reviser has seven working days to review and issue advisory recommendations, the code reviser must issue a certificate of review, and the sponsor has fifteen working days after notification to file the measure with that certificate for assignment of a serial number; the secretary must refuse to assign a serial number without the certificate and may refuse filing where required documents, fees, or petitions are missing or clearly insufficient. The text provided is incomplete: the amendment to RCW 29A.72.010 is cut off mid-sentence and the full amended language of RCW 29A.72.020 and RCW 29A.72.030 is not present, so any additional provisions or changes elsewhere in the bill are not available in the extracted facts.

If enacted, sponsors will need to gather and submit a verified set of at least 1,000 registered-voter signatures and supporting documents before the secretary of state will move a proposed measure forward, which is likely to delay the start of official review and raise up-front time and administrative costs for sponsors. Professional signature-gathering firms and paid circulators will have to change how they are paid (no per-signature pay allowed) and face new exposure to citizen lawsuits with potential civil penalties up to $10,000 per violation plus attorneys’ fees, increasing their legal and compliance risk and likely raising the price of paid signature services or shifting them to flat or hourly pay models. The secretary of state and code reviser will have added verification and rulemaking work and may use statistical sampling to check preliminary petitions, creating modest administrative workload and timing constraints; superior courts could see new cases under the citizen enforcement provision. Important details are missing from the provided text—such as the full amended language of several sections and the exact filing fee—so the full scope of procedural and cost impacts cannot be precisely determined from these extracts.