Citizens in Charge

Another two local ballot measures, in Spokane, have been thrown off the November ballot, reports the Spokane Spokesman-Review.

Recall elections to oust Senate President John Morse of Colorado Springs and state Sen. Angela Giron of Pueblo were once again thrown into flux this week after a Denver District Court judge’s ruling essentially made mail-ballot voting impossible. A few days later, the Colorado Supreme Court declined to hear the case on appeal and let the District Court ruling stand.

Judge Robert McGahey ruled from the bench Monday evening after hearing a day’s worth of arguments on a lawsuit brought by the Colorado Libertarian Party.

Read more: here

The Weld County Commissioners voted unanimously Monday to place a statehood initiative on the November ballot, joining three other counties interested in seceding from Colorado.

This makes Weld the fourth Colorado county, behind Sedgwick, Cheyenne and Yuma to send the idea of a statehood split to the voters. Five more counties, Kit Karson, Lincoln, Logan, Phillips and Washington, also are considering the ballot language and should be voting soon.

Read More: here

If you’ve been asked to sign initiatives for two competing gun measures by the same signature-gatherer, you’re not alone. And both sides are trying to put a stop to the confusion.

It turns out, some paid signature-gatherers have been carrying clipboards for both I-594 and I-591 and it’s got a number of voters up in arms.

“We have in our contract with the signature-gathering company they can’t collect for 594, too,” says Allen Gottleib, a spokesman for I-591, a measure backed by guns rights advocates that would prevent Washington state from adopting a stricter background-checks standard unless the federal government does the same thing.

During the 2013 Legislative Session, many efforts were made to change the way Initiated Measure and Referral System works in North Dakota.  Most of these efforts in one way or another would have had a negative effect on the citizen’s ability to initiate and refer laws.  To prevent legislative over-reach it is time to restrict the legislature’s ability to alter The Powers Reserved to the People by asking the voters to approve the following constitutional amendment in North Dakota: 

 

Recall is a procedural democratic device that allows voters to discharge and replace an elected official. At least 19 states provide for recall at the state level, and most states permit recall of local officials.

Coloradans, by citizen initiative, amended their constitution in 1912 to permit it here (approved handily by a vote of 53,620 to 39,564), and scores of recall elections at the local level have been held in Colorado in the past 100 years.

A veteran of multiple petition drives and lawsuits is taking on the state’s petition law once again.

Kent Bernbeck of Omaha filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday challenging two petition requirements as violations of his constitutional rights.

The first is a provision in the Nebraska Constitution requiring a geographic distribution of petition signers.

To make the ballot, an initiative petition must have signatures from at least 5 percent of voters in at least two-fifths, or 38, of Nebraska’s 93 counties.

Read More: here

Today, St. Louis activists who have regularly protested Peabody Energy with high-profile rallies are pushing forward with a new kind of action against the corporation — one that they say has not been tried before in the city.

Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey on Thursday certified a petition for an anti-light rail initiative, a day after a judge struck down a state law that initially had prompted Kimsey to invalidate hundreds of the signatures.

What the Vancouver City Council will do next, however, isn’t clear.

Regardless of the signature issue, Vancouver City Attorney Ted Gathe has advised the city council that the proposed ordinance violates the city charter and state law and it should not go to a public vote.

Gathe told the council last month that the proposed ordinance, crafted by a group of people who oppose the Columbia River Crossing project, falls outside the scope of the city’s initiative powers and would not be legally defensible.

Tomorrow is the deadline for a group trying to repeal a tax cut on oil companies.

Yes Repeal the Giveaway need* at least 30,000 verified signatures to get a referendum on the August primary ballot. So far, over 45,000 people have signed the petition booklets.

“It’s exceeded my expectations.”