Citizens in Charge

Citizens in Charge gladly releases the first I&R Legislative Tracker of 2013. This ongoing project provides information, links, and status updates for every bill concerning initiative and referendum filed in the 26 states with statewide I&R processes. We update the Tracker weekly.

In addition to keeping track of legislation, you can get the latest initiative, referendum and recall news via our State Newswire as well as on our Daily Citizen Blog. Stay tuned in.

Find it: Here

Some Arizona legislators want to provide extra time for individuals to consider a petition. But which individuals do they have in mind?

State Senator Michele Reagan, R-Scottsdale, thinks the courts need extra time.  With that in mind, Reagan has proposed a bill, SCR 1006, to move the filing deadline up two months. At face value, Reagan wants to ensure any contentious petition challenges have a chance to be properly looked-over by the courts.

An effort in Utah lead by Rep. Lee Perry, R-Perry, to establish a process for recall elections must wait until another time.  After meeting with legal council, Perry felt it was a better option to put the issue before the voters in 2014 than try to attempt to use the Legislature to make a change.

With only a few days remaining in the 2013 Legislative session, Perry’s efforts to push a bill through would most likely have fallen short.

There is currently no recall process in the Beehive State. The motivation to establish the process was inspired by an effort to remove Brigham City Mayor Dennis Fife, who admitted to an extramarital affair in December of 2012.

Those vexatious legislators in Missouri, irked by a recent ballot measure, are attempting to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot, which would limit the people’s power of petition.  The proposed amendment –HJR 11 – overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives last week. It would allow only the legislature to create laws regarding farming and agriculture in the Show-Me State.

Today’s legislative hearing on Senate Bill 1108 in Idaho was begun and then postponed until Monday after running out of time due to so many individuals and groups in attendance to testify against the legislation.

SB 1108 would dramatically increase the difficulty of qualifying an initiative or referendum for the statewide ballot via petition. Currently, citizens must gather signatures from six percent of registered voters statewide to qualify a ballot measure. Under this requirement, only eight citizen-initiated measures have made the ballot in the last 15 years – most notably the three referendums on last November’s ballot, whereby voters rejected three laws passed by legislators.