Newswire
Due to the recent arrests and indictments of a handful of New York state elected officials, Assemblyman Jim Tedisco, R-Glenville, has proposed a bill (A.6161) that would amend the state Constitution to give voters the ability to remove an elected official from office through a direct vote before his or her term has expired.
Creating recall elections for state legislators in New York state is a horrible idea.
The idea has been proposed by Republican members of the state Assembly, who say recall elections have been shown to work in 19 other states. States with recall elections have removed more than a dozen state legislators in 36 separate recall elections. Supporters say a recall election for state legislators will give power back to the voters by giving them a way to get rid of corrupt politicians.
The Arizona Constitution gives us the recall election to enable us to remove elected officials who are not doing an effective job and do not appropriately represent the majority.
The spirited legislative Republicans are upset that the current recall method was able to remove Russell Pearce from the Senate, although the majority of people got what they wanted. The system worked! Therefore, GOP legislators proposed House Bill 2282 to circumvent the current, effective recall method by adding a primary election to get a result wanted by only a few.
Let the system that’s in place work. No change is necessary per our state Constitution in this matter. The people should decide, not the politicians who are taking away our rights.
There is talk of reforming Wisconsin’s recall election procedures and we believe it is time for such a change.
We heard of the proposed recall changes in a release from State Sen. Sheila Harsdorf who reintroduced recall reform legislation in the State Senate as Senate Joint Resolution 24 (SJR 24).
The proposal is intended to safeguard the ability of citizens to remove officials for misconduct or ethics violations, while ensuring that recalls would not be abused for political purposes.
What she says makes sense; however, some might consider her involvement as being a bit tainted since she was the target of a recall election. Harsdorf, of course, survived the recall election and the Republican probably is as knowledgeable as anyone regarding this subject.
nitiative promoter Tim Eyman filed a ballot measure Wednesday to make all tax hikes passed by the Washington state Legislature expire after a year.
Under the initiative, the one-year limit would go away if state lawmakers pass a constitutional amendment to require a legislative supermajority to raise taxes and eliminate tax breaks. If passed by the Legislature by a two-thirds majority in each chamber, the amendment would need a simple majority of voters to be enacted.
The effort to recall Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is approaching its last month needing more than 130,000 valid petition signatures to force an election.
Organizers of the recall effort on Monday said they have collected 200,359 signatures, still far short of the 335,000 signatures they are required to file by May 30 to force Arpaio into a recall election.
Read More Here
The office of Attorney General Kamala Harris granted the San Jose police union’s request for a judicial review of Measure B, the controversial pension reform ballot measure voters passed last year. In an opinion published Monday, Harris and her deputy attorney general, Marc Nolan, wrote that a review is needed to determine if the city of San Jose “fulfilled its statutory collective bargaining obligations before placing an initiative measure on the June 2012 ballot.”
Critics of Anchorage’s new municipal labor law are mounting another effort to repeal it.
The Anchorage Assembly last month eliminated the right to strike by eight city unions and took away performance bonuses and incentives in future city contracts. The measure also limits annual pay hikes and creates a system for outsourcing certain city work.
The city last week rejected a petition for a referendum by voters on repeal of the ordinance.
Read More: Here
In February the Long Beach Citizens’ and Patients Rights’ PAC (LBCPR) submitted over 43,000 signatures in an attempt to force a special election on the question of whether medpot dispensaries should be allowed to operate in Long Beach. But last month the City informed LBCPR that the organization failed to obtain the requisite number of valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.
Efforts to overturn new limits on the size of homes in historic neighborhoods near downtown Fort Collins have come up short.
A petition drive calling for the repeal of an ordinance setting tighter standards for the square footage, height and design of houses in the Eastside and Westside neighborhoods wound up 43 signatures short of the minimum needed to force action by the City Council, said organizer Jill Kuch.
Petitioners had until 5 p.m. Thursday to turn in 2,809 signatures of registered voters supporting the repeal. If enough signatures had been collected, the council would have been required to repeal the ordinance or have city voters decide the matter through an election.