Citizen Blog

Political opposites unite to protect citizen initiative process

The League of Women Voters of Florida calls Proposal 97 “the worst of the worst,” and contends that it will “make it close to impossible for the constitution to be changed by initiative, by the Legislature or by any commission in the future.”

Proposal 97, one of more than 30 constitutional amendmsnts Florida’s Constitution Revision Commission is considering placing on the 2018 ballot, would count voters who vote neither yes nor no on a ballot measure as a NO vote against the meassure. Already, Florida requires a supermajority 60 percent vote to pass a ballot measure.

The case will be appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court, but a district judge has decided, reports the Las Vegas Review Journal, “that forms submitted by people asking for their signatures to be removed from the recall petitions targeting Democratic state Sens. Joyce Woodhouse (District 5) and Nicole Cannizzaro (District 6) must be counted — a move that puts the recalls at risk.”

Republican recall proponents pledged to appeal the ruling. If the two Democractic Party state senators were successfully recalled, Republicans would gain the majority.

A new Ohio law gives local election boards and the Secretary of State the power to block petitions for local ordinances and charter amendments from going to the ballot to be decided by voters.

Virginia Beach officials won’t tell a group of citizens whether or not they have enough voter signatures to place the city’s proposed light rail project on the ballot for an up-or-down vote. The group, No Light Rail in Virginia Beach, turned in 26,236 signatures, more than enough to reach the requirement of 25 percent of the vote in the “prior” election.

Yet, in a letter, the city’s general registrar announced, “I hereby certify that the number of valid signatures reviewed by this office as of the date of this submission exceeds 25% of the number of votes cast in the 2015 Election but does not exceed 25% of the number of votes cast in the 2014 Election.”

Last week, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 120, providing an additional $16 million in funding to the state’s 58 counties for verifying millions of voter signatures on “potentially dozens of initiative petitions” and for processing the crush of new voter registrations.                                                                                                                   Secretary of State Alex Padilla applauded the funding bill, calling this election cycle “unique.” He explained that, “County elections officials must not only prepare for a surge in voter turnout, they also have to verify a massive number of signatures for ballot measure initiative petitions.”

Wyoming’s law banning initiative campaigns from paying petition circulators according to the number of signatures they gather is facing legislative repeal. This week, the Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee in the state senate voted to pass the repeal legislation, Senate File 35, unanimously.

This week, Citizens in Charge Foundation President Paul Jacob traveled to Pierre and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to release an 18-page report on the prosecution of Dr. Annette Bosworth by South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley, warning at a news conference in Sioux Falls that it may have “a chilling effect on political participation.”

“We want the law to be enforced and people held accountable,” said Jacob, “but the severity of this penalty goes too far and threatens to scare citizens away from getting involved in politics.”

Legislative Bill 367 sailed through Nebraska’s unicameral legislature today on a 42-0 vote. Without a single dissent, the legislation reverses the state’s seven-year ban on paying petition circulators according to the number of signatures they gather on a petition.

Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte, the bill’s author, declared that the Legislature and the people whad become locked in a “civil war” after voters passed term limits for State Senators more than a dozen years ago.

Groene, serving his first term, told fellow lawmakers, “It’s time for this body to call a truce.”

The Arkansas Supreme Court reversed most of Circuit Judge Mary McGowan’s previous ruling, which declared numerous provisions of Act 1413 to be unconstitutional restrictions on the rights of Arkansans seeking to petition their government. Legislators passed the Act back in 2013.

Maine State Rep. Stanley Short (D-Pittsfield) is introducing legislation on behalf of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, a pro-hunting group, to regulate and restrict non-resident paid petitioners. The text of the bill has yet to be released, but reports say it will ban out-of-state petitioners and require paid-petitioners to register with the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices and to wear a special ID badge on their persons while petitioning.

An effort in Woburn, Massachusetts, to help educate area voters on the effects of future ballot measures and referendum questions has hit a snag in the City Council’s Liaison Committee.  Disagreements over the issue of who would write the summaries describing each ballot issue and who would approve that text have put any action on hold for now.

The issue arose after a 2014 local referendum on the adoption of a “Community Preservation Act,” which election officials were not allowed to explain to voters for the sake of neutrality. The measure ultimately failed, but inspired City Clerk William Campbell to push for some method by which voters could be better informed about ballot questions.

The low turnout of voters in the recent mid-term elections disappointed quite a few folks throughout the country. Those seeking to qualify initiatives for the 2016 ballot, however, have something to cheer about.  With fewer votes being cast come lower thresholds for signature requirements in many initiative states, especially in initiative heavy-weight California, where the signature requirement has dropped to the lowest raw number in 25 years.

A century-old Nebraska rule for initiative qualification has been struck down as unconstitutional by US District Court Judge Joseph F. Bataillon. The provision required signatures from “5% of registered voters of each of the 2/5ths of the counties in the state.” This meant that petitions for ballot measures were required to be circulated in at least 38 of the 93 counties in the Cornhusker State.

The plaintiff in the case, Kent Bernbeck, brought the suit claiming that under the now defunct rule, rural voters counted for more than voters in more urban areas. 

“The court finds that the facts presented in this case show clearly that urban votes are diluted under the Nebraska Constitution,” the judge stated in his opinion.

Last week’s elections allowed voters across the country to decide issues important to them. But not in New Jersey, a state that lacks any process for citizens to petition initiatives onto the ballot or to refer laws passed by the state legislature to voters.

Jersey citizens are on the outside looking in at states that allow direct democracy, i.e. citizen-initiated measures. That might be one reason that less than one in three Garden State citizens turned out to vote in the mid-term election – setting an all-time record low.