Archives for March 2010

Ballot Box

As I anticipated, yesterday’s work session in the Maine Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee discussion centered on Senator Seth Berry’s bill, the amended version of LD 1690 (LD 1690-A), that contains provisions meant to curtail the ballot initiative and People’s Veto referendum rights of Mainers. LD 1730, with similar provisions, was also slated to be discussed but was not.

Ok, so they’re only really “robots” in the same way that an ATM is technically a robot. There are no cool lasers or arms. It can’t crush cars or fly (yet), but it might talk to you. I’m not entirely sure about the last point as I haven’t seen one of these things in person yet, but I imagine some sort of audio prompt is possible.

Growing up outside of Wheeling, WV, I spent much of my life getting weather reports from channel 7’s John Domenick. Mr. Domenick has since retired from television and moved on to the Ohio House of Representatives, where he is looking to bring what may be the storm of the century to bear against the voting rights of Ohioans.

Erik Hayden recently wrote a piece in Miller-McCune outlining our report card on citizen initiative rights, and comparing it to another organizations similar report. Our comprehensive analysis of the intitiative & referendum process in each of the 50 states and Washington, DC shows that threats to these citizen rights exist all across the country.

Steven Allen Adams of the West Virginia Watchdog - a project of the Public Policy Foundation of West Virginia - and I talked yesterday about bringing ballot initiative and referendum rights to West Virginia (my home state). The first segment in a three-part on putting the voters in charge of the Mountain State is excerpted below: