Citizens in Charge

Citizens in Charge Foundation President Paul Jacob will be in Sacramento, CA tomorrow morning to hold a press conference honoring Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger with this month’s John Lilburne Award. Governor Schwarzenegger is receiving the award for recently vetoing four bills that would have restricted the initiative process in the state.

I am writing to provide an update on the CB58-2008 referendum petition drive that started last November after the Howard County Maryland Council approved a 300% zoning increase for the size of grocery stores in Turf Valley.You may recall that citizens gathered over 9,300 signatures to place this legislation on the ballot for voters to decide in the 2010 election.

Here’s a link to a video we made earlier this year.  With this year’s election season over and looking towards defending and expanding the initiative process in 2010 the video is a timely reminder. The ability of citizens to petition their government is a fundamentally important right.

At the recent 2009 State Policy Network Conference, Citizens in Charge Foundation president Paul Jacob gave a presentation on fighting back against political attacks and frivolous prosecution.  His talk focused on his indictment in Oklahoma last year over signature gathering procedures. The main message however, was that when you are under attack politically, tell your story, respond quickly to further attacks and go on offense.

The results are in from the numerous ballot measures that were voted on yesterday.  It looks like about half passed and half did not. Next year should be quite a bit bigger in terms of the number of citizen-initiatives on the ballot.  You can check out the results here.

After today the 2009 ballot season will essentially be over.  There relatively few citizen-led measures on the ballot around the country this year, mostly due to the fact that only 3 states allow them. 2010 will be a different story however, it will be a much busier election season.

It’s election day today in many states around the country. Even though it’s technically an off-election year there are still many initiatives and referenda on ballots in many states. Make sure to get out and vote today on the ballot measures in your state. Here’s Ballotpedia.org’s list of state-wide ballot measures being voted on today.

 

There’s a good commentary from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association that came out a couple days ago regarding the initiative process and California. It highlights some of the recent attacks on the taxpayers and their ability to use the initiative process in the state.