Billings Gazette
State officials have given the go-ahead for backers to begin gathering signatures for a proposed 2012 ballot measure that’s intended to protect voter-passed initiatives from later changes or repeal by the Legislature. Attorney General Steve Bullock’s office informed Secretary of State Linda McCulloch’s office that the proposal is “legally sufficient,” McCulloch told the Montana Coalition for Rights, the group advocating for the measure. Constitutional Initiative 109 declares that the people reserve for themselves the right to repeal or amend any laws passed by initiative.
Can he do that? Marijuana advocates asked the question last week, when Missoula County Attorney Fred Van Valkenburg said he was pushing legislation to override the 2006 voter initiative that recommends making pot the county’s lowest law-enforcement priority. “It honestly sounds like an end run around the voters’ will,” said Nathan Taub, a University of Montana student who testified against Van Valkenburg’s successful 2007 attempt to tweak the measure. “It’s politics, plain and simple.”
A trial will begin Thursday in Polson on the “pay-day” lending industry’s attempt to remove a measure imposing new limits on the industry from the Nov. 2 ballot. The suit says Initiative 164 supporters used deceptive and illegal practices to get I-164 on the ballot. I-164 opponents sued the state in August, claiming that signature-gatherers made false statements about the measure’s content, in order to persuade people to sign petitions that qualified I-164 for the ballot.
Three ballot measures will appear on the November ballot, while eight others failed to muster the necessary signatures, Secretary of State Linda McCulloch said Monday. The measures that qualified, if approved, would prohibit state and local governments from imposing new taxes on real estate transactions, end guaranteed hunting licenses for outfitters and cap interest rates that payday and title loan businesses can charge consumers.
Backers of a proposed constitutional initiative that blocks the government from ever imposing a certain type of real estate tax say they have enough signatures to get on the ballot. Constitutional Initiative 105 would prevent the adoption of a tax on the sale or inheritance of property. No such tax exists in Montana at the moment, but has been suggested at the Legislature in the past.
The real estate industry has raised more than $600,000 so far to gather signatures for a ballot measure that would amend the Montana Constitution to forbid state and local governments from ever imposing taxes on real estate transfers or sales. The Coalition to Prevent Double Taxation has collected and spent more than any other group promoting or opposing Montana ballot measures this year, according to campaign finance reports filed this week with the state Commissioner of Political Practices Office.
If the school board tries to pass a bond issue, it won’t happen until 2011. Natrona County School District staff members and board members re-evaluated information from investment banking firm George K. Baum and Co. of Cheyenne on Monday concerning the possibility of asking district voters to authorize issuance of bonds for several construction projects. Several board members said gathering community support for such a proposal would not be possible before 2011.
City officials are pushing ahead with plans to move the Parmly Billings Library into the nearby Gainan’s building at 502 N. 30th St. Because the project partially relies on federal stimulus funds that must be allocated by the end of 2010, the city is moving quickly.
For some 140 years, Wyoming’s largest county has been run by the three-member board known as the Sweetwater County Commission. Come the fall of 2010, there could be four vacant commission seats up for election if a group of area residents get their wish. A group of non-partisan residents have been working for months on a petition drive that aims to let voters decide if the commission should be expanded from three members to five. The group spearheading the petition drive is asking that a special election be scheduled for Nov. 3 to decide the issue.
After a legislative review raised some legal questions about three proposed anti-abortion constitutional initiatives, their backers submitted a single revised measure this week. The Montana ProLife Coalition, based in Bigfork, turned in a modified proposed initiative to state officials Tuesday that addresses some, but not all, of the legal concerns raised by an attorney with the Legislative Services Division. The revised proposed ballot measure now goes to Attorney General Steve Bullock for his review.