Carlson is not the John Carlson you hear on the radio, who also ran for governor. He's the John Carlson who used to be a health care executive.

Meanwhile, the Secretary of State's office says election workers are verifying that Initiative 1000 has enough valid signatures to get onto the November ballot.

SUBJECT: Initiative checks

Several of you asked about the timeline for initiative checks. Work began on I-1000 on Monday and the check, using a 3 percent random sample, could be complete by next Monday, the 28th.

After I-1000 is checked, the crew will turn to I-1029. The I-1029 petitions were copied and archived and were returned to Elections on Monday. The plan is to check the signatures, again using random sampling, and to await any further guidance from the courts. We still have not gotten word of a lawsuit being filed yet. The attorney general’s office will provide you notice when that happens. Our Elections Division and the counties will be hoping for a quick resolution of the question of whether I-1029 is properly an initiative to the people, because the General Election Voters’ Pamphlet has printing deadlines in early September and the counties need to know whether to include I-1029 on the ballots they print.

General election ballots for military and overseas voters must go out by Oct. 5.

And here's the news release on Carlson:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JULY 21, 2008
For further information contact:
Marie Harkins:
206-337-2091
JOHN CARLSON TO MANAGE CAMPAIGN OF OPPONENTS TO PHYSICIAN ASSISTED SUICIDE

Olympia---Former veteran health care executive John Carlson was named today as the full-time campaign manager of the Coalition Against Assisted Suicide’s effort to defeat Initiative 1000 which is expected to be on the November ballot.

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In announcing the hire, coalition chair Chris Carlson (no relation) said “we are pleased to have landed someone with John’s managerial experience as well as his extensive knowledge of the health care industry and his numerous contacts around the state.”

“This initiative is a terribly flawed proposal that should not become law,” the newly hired campaign manager stated. “When the voters of the state of Washington realize this proposal will eventually put government into the business of setting criteria for deciding who lives and who dies, will incentivize those in my former industry to encourage doctors to offer least cost alternatives when faced with a terminal disease, that it mandates doctors lie when signing death certificates, and numerous other onerous elements, I believe they will decisively reject it,” the former health care executive stated.

The new campaign manager said he would shortly be hiring more staff and has already hired a full-time outreach coordinator, Marie Harkins who formerly worked in marketing for the United Health Group.

“Anybody looking at the PDC reports knows we are being outspent ten to one, but we’re building a topflight organization quickly to defeat this badly conceived proposal and we believe the money to pay for this commitment will be there at the end of the day,” the new campaign manager stated. He noted there had already been an uptick in donations since news that the proponents had paid signature gatherers over $1 million to collect over 300,000 signatures to put the controversial measure on the ballot.

Carlson concluded by saying he is constructing a team that will deploy hundreds of volunteers in the coming weeks to distribute coalition literature. He said he also expects to get messages out over television and radio so the voters of the state understand what a misguided and flawed initiative is being presented by proponents some of whom openly admit the initiative is just a first step towards legalizing euthanasia.