Citizens in Charge

The Second House Amendment Committee, a new group formed by initiative rights activists in Nebraska, filed an initiative constitutional amendment this week to lower the signature requirements for qualifying citizen initiatives. The group also filed a campaign finance registration, which is required once at least $5,000 has been raised by a ballot committee.

“I am confident that with the dedication of our volunteers and the commitment I have secured from people who are friends to petition rights, this issue will be on the November ballot,” committee member Kent Bernbeck told reporters.

The group takes its name from the idea that with Nebraska’s only-in-the-nation unicameral legislature, the citizen initiative acts as the state’s second legislative chamber. The committee is chaired by Mike Groene of North Platte, who led a 2006 effort for a state spending cap that voters rejected, and includes: Marc Schniederjans of Lincoln, who headed up the successful 2008 drive to repeal of affirmative action; Sharon Craichy of Burwell, a leader of the successful repeal of a state law eliminating elementary-only school districts; and Kent Bernbeck of Stanton, who has been involved in numerous petition drives.

The amendment would return Nebraska’s signature threshold for statewide constitutional amendments to ten percent of the vote for governor and statutory initiatives to seven percent of that vote. That’s precisely what the requirement was before the state supreme court’s rouge decision in the Duggan case (1994) changed the basis for determining the ten and seven percent threshold from the governor’s vote to the total number of registered voters in the state.

The Duggan case was a challenge to a 1992 term limits initiative, claiming that the signature requirement officially published by the state’s attorney general and secretary of state and fully met by the term limits petitioners was too low according to their novel reading of the state constitution, which the Nebraska Supreme Court agreed to in striking term limits down.

“The people of this state had their right to petition put out of reach by this court decision,” said Groene. “It’s time the people restore this time honored process.”

Under the current legal requirement, the group must gather over 115,000 signatures from registered voters. If the initiative amendment gets on the ballot and passes, that requirement would fall to 48,798.

The Omaha World-Herald report is linked here.