Citizens in Charge

Last week over two-thirds of Illinois voters voted in favor of establishing a process by which voters can recall the state’s governor. On the surface this may look like a great advancement in citizen rights, but just like with initiative rights, having a process and having an open and accessible process that citizens can use are two different things.

Unfortunately, as Kristina Rasmussen at the Illinois Policy Institute points out, it looks like Illinois’ new process may not be very usable:

An effort to recall the mayor of Miami looks like it will go to court as the subject of the recall effort attempts to block the petition on a technicality:

The 2010 election saw citizens all across the country voting on well over 100 different ballot measures in nearly every state. While the midterm elections are now over, our work to protect and expand initiative & referendum rights around the country continues.

With the defeat of two measures that would have curtailed Arizonans’ petition rights and the narrow passage of an amendment streamlining Oklahoma’s initiative process, yesterday’s election went quite well for petition rights advocates.

Today, millions of citizens are voting on over a hundred different ballot measures across the country. Some of them are citizen initiated, some are legislatively referred. While we here at Citizens in Charge prefer that the citizens get to place their own measures on the ballot, we are happy that citizens get a voice through the legislatively referred ones as well.

If you’re interested in seeing what’s on the ballot check out this roundup from FoxNews. You can also check out BallotPedia, a great central location for all the ballot initiative news and information you can handle.

As voters head to the polls throughout our nation today, it’s important to remember that for many Americans the right to vote has been hard won. For one of those groups - woman voters - the ballot initiative process has been a critical step in achieving representation.

As detailed in the I&R Almanac, ballot initiatives were a critical tool in raising awareness of equal voting rights for women:

Last week Citizens in Charge Foundation - a partner organization to Citizens in Charge - sent a letter to Secretaries of State and Attorneys General in 12 states asking them to stop enforcing unconstitutional restrictions on ballot initiative rights. In light of recent legal action in which Kansas officials agreed with petition advocates that the state’s law against petition circulators from other states was unconstitutional, Foundation President Paul Jacob asked officials to “do the right thing” and stop enforcing similar