California
The New Haven school district is bracing for significant teacher layoffs, class-size increases and program cuts after a manual recount Wednesday confirmed the defeat of the district’s $3 million per year parcel tax measure. The recount resulted in a single vote being added to the yes column when the measure’s campaign committee chairman, Richard Valle, spotted an empty ballot, in which the voter had mistakenly marked “Yes” in the instruction section. But that still left the measure with 65.7 percent of the vote, 81 votes shy of the 66.7 percent threshold to pass.
Democrats in the state Senate approved two bills Monday designed to shorten the reins on professional signature-gatherers who have come to dominate California’s initiative process. Under one bill, individuals would have to wear large-print badges specifying whether they are volunteers or are being paid to collect voter signatures.
Yesterday on a party-line vote, Democrats in the California Senate passed SB 448, a bill that will force petition circulators to wear huge badges on their chest while collecting signatures. You can read more about that here. The bill now moves on to the state assembly, where hopefully it will be voted down. 
From San Jose Mercury News:
Ballot initiatives that result in new spending for the state - a practice derided by some as “ballot box budgeting” - would have to include a source of funding under a bill that passed its first legislative hurdle at the Capitol on Tuesday. The measure, a constitutional amendment that would have to go before voters if approved by the Legislature and signed by the governor, would mark a major change in California’s unique brand of direct democracy that was brought to the state by Hiram Johnson 100 years ago.
The Attorney General’s office on Tuesday released its title and summary on a ballot measure that would tax oil companies, with proceeds used to increase education spending by $2 billion to $3 billion a year. Backers of the initiative can now begin to collect signatures. Easier said than done, especially for what is basically a one-man operation. Peter Mathews, a Southern California college professor, said he will be enlisting students around the state to gather the signatures, using Facebook and Twitter to generate interest.
Citizens in Charge President Paul Jacob has a piece up today on Fox & Hounds, a California political blog, discussing recent legislation that would force petition signers to wear a badge while gathering signatures, a First Amendment right:
A judge Wednesday rejected a lawsuit that sought to repeal a Monterey Park ballot measure that requires the city to accept the lowest bidder on its next trash contract. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge John Torribio ruled the lawsuit did not even meet a “slight burden” in its effort to repeal the ballot measure through state laws intended to protect the environment. “The court went with us on all of the arguments we had put forward,” said Christi Hogin, a city attorney who argued against the lawsuit.
The Economist got it all wrong about California’s initiative process:
To the Editor,
Once again, The Economist lays blame for California’s budget problems at the foot of the state’s ballot initiative process [“Burn the wagons,” April 20] without offering even a scintilla of evidence for such an assertion.
Previously on our newswire we’ve had a couple stories about the anti-circumcision campaign going on in San Francisco. They’ve been collecting signatures and are now claiming to have enough to put it on the ballot:
A ballot measure that would make it a misdemeanor to circumcise a child, except for medical reasons, has garnered more than enough signatures to make it onto the November ballot in San Francisco, organizers claim. The initiative, which is titled “Prohibition of Genital Cutting of Male Minors” would make it illegal to “circumcise, excise, cut, or mutilate the whole or any part of the foreskin, testicles, or penis of another person who has not attained the age of 18Â years.” A snipper could face a fine of as much as $1000 or imprisonment in county jail for up to a year.
A movement to put an Arizona-style immigration measure on the California ballot in 2012 appears to have fizzled. Republican activist Michael Erickson gained national attention just before Thanksgiving when the state approved his gathering of signatures for a ballot initiative that would crack down on illegal immigration in the state. It would have required police to check the immigration status of people they stopped and suspected of being in the country illegally, and it would have criminalized seeking work while concealing immigration status.
Open-space advocates intend to again ask Laguna Beach voters to support taxing themselves $20 million over 20 years in order to preserve 550 acres of remaining land within city limits that could potentially be developed. On Monday, Citizens for Preservation of Open Space, a political action committee, filed their notice of intent to collect signatures for a new ballot initiative, Asst. City Clerk Lisette Chel confirmed.
Supervisor Scott Wiener says he plans to propose a charter amendment at today’s Board of Supervisors meeting that would grant the supes power to amend or appeal ballot initiatives approved by voters —Â a step he insists will help reduce the number of such measures San Francisco residents are asked to weigh in on during election seasons. The the change to the city’s charter would allow the supervisors to amend or appeal a ballot measure with a two-thirds majority after it has been in effect for three years, and through a simple majority vote after seven years.
This morning I testified at the California state capitol before the Public Safety Committee against SB 168 a bill aimed at banning payment per signature for petition circulators. Here is a clip about how the hearing went from the capitol grounds.Â
Mark Bucher, the Orange County conservative behind the unsuccessful 1998 attempt to stop unions from being able to deduct dues from employees’ paychecks, is back with a new measure that would cover that – and much more. The “Stop Special Interest Money Now” proposal attempts broader reform than the failed plan, dubbed “Paycheck Protection.”