Citizens in Charge

Here is the latest update for the three anti-initiative and referendum bills currently working their way through the Maine Legal and Veterans Affairs (LVA) Committee.

LD 1690, “An Act To Prevent Predatory Signature Gathering and Ensure a Clean Citizen Initiative and People’s Veto Process” was voted on in Committee Work Session (2/25) as Ought Not to Pass; however it has not been reported out of committee yet.

Two controversial anti-initiative bills are about to be brought up once again in the Maine Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee. Both bills would chill petitioning in Maine, and lawmakers have been hearing from activists on the issue. Fireworks are expected, and you can listen in right now live via the Legislature’s website by clicking here.

Utah Senate Bill 275, sponsored by the apparently less-than-voter-friendly Sen. Howard Stephenson, has passed both houses and now sits on the Governor’s desk. The bill would give opponents of an initiative one month more to try to get voters to take their names off of a petition than initiative proponents have to get voters to put their names on. This not only gives opponents an unfair advantage in their campaigns, but opens up voters to harassment.

We put up a new video late yesterday afternoon from this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC. Our theme was “Government Gone Wild”, and we got a great response from those who stopped by our booth to grab some info or a t-shirt.

Government has Gone Wild. Protect yourself.

Let’s go halfway across the pond to Iceland for a little bit of international intitiative & referendum news.

Citizens of Iceland voted this past weekend on a repayment plan to pay back patrons of an Icelandic bank that failed. With the results almost completely tallied I think it’s safe to say that they did not like the repayment plan. It’s back to the drawing board for the government of Iceland on how to repay the debt.

To celebrate Citizens in Charge Foundation President Paul Jacob’s 50th birthday, the staff went bowling during our lunch break today. The rest of the staff tried our best, but the birthday boy was victorious, bowling a solid 144. Who knew our modest president was such a good bowler? It must be all that karma, working for decades for citizen rights. Here’s to a happy 50th birthday Paul.

(LAKE RIDGE, VA) – Citizens in Charge Foundation, a transpartisan national voter rights group focused on the ballot initiative and referendum process, presented Utah State Representative Neil Hansen (D-Ogden) with the March 2010 John Lilburne Award.  Rep. Hansen is being recognized for standing up for equality and fairness in the state’s initiative process and against pending legislation, SB 275, which would give opponents of an initiative an unfair advantage over the initiative’s supporters.

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:

Citizens around the country are clamoring for more of a voice in their government. They are tired of being dictated to from Washington, DC and state capitols around the country. Populist sentiment is building, and one state that illustrates that quite well is Connecticut. John Woodcock III is the chairman of the Connecticut Citizens for Ballot Initiative, a group that is pushing to bring initiative & referendum rights to the citizens of Connecticut.

Today, Citizens in Charge, a transpartisan national voter rights group focused on the ballot initiative and referendum process, presented testimony urging Maryland legislators to restore the state’s referendum process by passing Senate Bill 240. Additionally, the group suggested amending the bill to give the Board of Elections latitude in verifying the identity of the registered voter.

The following appeared as an op-ed in Monday’s Connecticut Post: