Citizens in Charge

For those of you who are Irish and those of you who are not, Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

I haven’t been able to find anything about St Patrick’s day that’s related to initiative & referendum yet, but if you know of anything feel free to pass it along.

Eirinn go Brach!

Citizens in Charge has a new video up on our YouTube channel. We talked with some of our board members about why they support citizen initiative rights and Citizens in Charge.

Check it out.

It’s the greatest municipal recall in US history, and the most significant recall election since California voters ousted former governor Gray Davis in 2003. An astounding 88 percent of voters said Tuesday that they wanted to recall Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez from office. According to the New York Times, voters were angry that the Republican mayor of America’s ninth most populous county raised taxes and increased the salaries of his aids at the height of the recession.

Today there is a hearing in the California Senate on S.B. 168. Citizens in Charge opposes the bill and sent the following letter to state senators:

Here’s a piece from the Washington Examiner:

An identical bill has was vetoed in 2006 and 2009 but that won’t stop state Sen. Corbett from attacking California petition proponents. The California Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday, March 15, on SB 168, an attempt to ban paying petition circulators by the signature. Such bans have been found unconstitutional in several states, and most recently a federal judge in Colorado found that state’s ban likely to be struck down.

Once again the Missouri State Senate has decided it is smarter than the voters:

The Missouri state Senate’s vote to overturn the voter-approved referendum controlling puppy mills is just the latest in a series of legislative votes overturning measures approved by voters state-wide. Some see a war by rural lawmakers against St. Louis and Kansas City; others see a battle between the conservative legislature and more moderate and liberal voters; and most lawmakers see nothing wrong with it.

If you weren’t able to make it to the 2010 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy and U.S. Conference on I&R last summer in San Francisco but still want to hear all the great speakers and debate, now is your chance.

The 8 part DVD series is available for purchase here.

Thanks to the great work of initiative activist Tim Eyman, State Senators Don Benton and Pam Roach, the collective editorial power of Evergreen State newspapers and an outpouring of citizens contacting their legislators, Senate Bill 5297 was defeated yesterday in the Washington state legislature as it missed the mandatory deadline for a senate vote.

Last year Brandon Holmes and I traveled to Big Spring, TX to talk with a group of citizens whose petitions rights were violated by the city council. Now that same group is working to get a term limits measure on the city ballot after the city council rejected the issue in January:

As we noted last week, recall efforts are ramping up in Wisconsin against both Republican and Democrat state legislators. Not one to miss out on a good political fight, Sarah Palin weighed in on the recall efforts:

On Saturday’s “Justice with Jeanine” on the Fox News Channel, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin weighed in on the turmoil in Wisconsin. Her solution: fire the senators standing in the way of Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal.

The message to Washington state legislators couldn’t be clearer: hands off citizen initiative rights.

Seattle Times, May 3, 2011, “Initiative-Curbing Bill Unfair And Ineffective” –