Citizens in Charge

Citizens in Charge Foundation, The New America Foundation, The Swiss Confederation and The American Consortium on EU Studies Center of Excellence

Invite you to a Roundtable Discussion

The Rise of Transnational Direct Democracy:
The European Citizen’s Initiative and
What It Means for the World

WHEN:  Monday May 24, 2010
TIME: 3:00 to 5:00 p.m.

A group of citizens have turned in nearly 9,000 signatures - in a city of just over 100,000 residents - for the recall of Mayor James Holley.

Thanks to the hard work of a transpartisan coalition of groups and activists - including Citizens in Charge, our partner organization - the quest of some state senators to even further reduce Coloradans’ petition rights has been stopped. Senate Concurrent Resolution 003, which would have imposed a supermajority requirement on citizen-initiated constitutional amendments but not on amendments from the legislature, died quietly in the House Tuesday, unable to be taken up before the session end

BallotPedia released their weekly ballot measure count and update yesterday. The count increased from 109 last week to 116 this week. You can view the report here.

 

I have some good news and bad news to report. The good news is that a resolution to put a pro I&R plank back on the Republican Party of Texas (RPT) Platform has made it through the Senatorial District conventions and is headed to the Platform Committee at the State Convention next month. A pro-I&R plank was on the RPT platform from 1979 to 1996. Two separate advisory referendums on the Republican party primary ballots showed the rank and file favored I&R by margins of 7 to 1 and 5 to 1.

Two separate efforts to bring Arizona’s controversial new immigration law to a public vote have been scrapped, according to the Washington Post.

Over at Townhall.com Foundation president Paul Jacob talks about efforts to secure Nebraskans’ petition rights in “The Spike That Broke the People’s Back.” As Chairman of the Western Nebraska Taxpayers Association - in addition to being Citizens in Charge Foundation’s Nebraska Citizen State Coordinator - I just want to take a moment to say how glad I am that organizations like Citizens in Charge Foundation and Citizen

Make sure to check out our new video on the Doe v Reed case that was argued before the Supreme Court at the end of April. This is a very important case moving forward for initiative & referendum around the country.

You can watch the video here.

To those of you who were able to make it to Tortilla Coast and help us celebrate our West Coast expansion, thank you. We were able to wish Amanda well as she heads to California to expand our role in making the initiative & referendum process more open & accessible from coast to coast.

Make sure to stay tuned for updates on our new adventures in California and if you haven’t already, signed up to attend the 2010 U.S. Conference on Initiative & Referendum. Registration is FREE!

Join us tonight to celebrate the expansion of Citizens in Charge’s West Coast network supporting citizen rights.

Our Executive Director Amanda Roman will be moving to California later this month to put a Citizens in Charge presence in the state and region. This move is a great opportunity for us to expand and protect citizen initiative rights from coast to coast.

Each Tuesday Ballotpedia releases an update on the number of measures on state-wide ballots around the country. This week the total is up to 109. Of that total 89 are on ballot by legislative referrel and 20 are citizen initiated ballot measures. We will keep you informed about what is on ballots around the country each Tuesday with an update from Ballotpedia.

Join us this summer in San Francisco! Citizens in Charge Foundation is hosting the U.S. Conference on Initiative & Referendum. This will be a unique gathering of academics, journalists, activists, elected officials, think-tank leaders, political professionals and - best of all - citizens from all over the nation discussing ways to expand and protect citizen initiative rights.

Yesterday petition groups in Missouri turned in signatures for a variety of measures hoping to get on the ballot this year. Ballotpedia covered the turning in of signatures on Twitter and also put up a story on Watchdog.org about what’s going on in the state regarding initiative & referendum this year. Make sure to go and check it out.

Transcripts of the oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday in Doe v. Reed - a case dealing with voter privacy - have been made available. You can read the transcript from the Court’s website here.

Arizona’s legislature adjourned for the year last night without passing any more anti-initiative bills. Yesterday I told you about a constitutional amendment to reduce the time to collect signatures by two months that will appear on the state’s November ballot.