Mississippi
The head of the Mississippi Republican Party said the group will handle an initiative to get voter identification on the ballot just as it would any other election campaign, by traveling the state to urge voters to support the issue. State GOP Chairman Brad White said he hopes to get the voter ID initiative on the ballot for November 2010. To do so would require some 100,000 signatures from certified voters in the state’s congressional districts by Oct. 1.
Lawmakers in Wisconsin, Ohio, Montana and Mississippi failed to get a freeway speed camera measure onto a ballot, but points to Maryland as an example of lawmakers’ success. He says 13 states have specific laws banning freeway cameras, but he sees a natural progression from states using red-light cameras to using freeway speed cameras.
Voters gave the Flowood business community a collective thumbs up, overwhelmingly approving a ballot measure granting resort status to the city so restaurants can begin selling liquor and wine by the glass. The measure passed 1,172 to 383.
Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann is confident that an initiative to add photographic voter ID to the state constitution will be on the ballot for the next statewide election, telling the more than 200 members of American Legion Boys State Tuesday that work on the effort is “picking up steam.”
After failing to get the matter taken up by the state legislature, Mississippi’s Secretary of State is taking his quest for a voter ID law to the voters themselves. He and other supporters of a law that requires a government issued ID to vote need to collect over 90,000 signatures by October to put the question on the ballot.
Since 1993, Mississippians have had the option of taking power away from the Legislature and changing the state constitution as they deem appropriate when the Legislature refuses to act.
The Mississippi Constitution, article 15, sec. 273, contains the procedure for initiatives to change the state Constitution. That part of the Constitution was written in 1992, when Mississippi had five U.S. House Districts. The Constitution says, “The signatures from any one congressional district shall not exceed one-fifth of the total number of signatures required to qualify an initiative petition.
A petition drive for a ballot measure that would require voters to show a state-issued ID before voting will kick off statewide next month. Proponents are running the measure in response to the failure of a bill in the state House that would have created a voter ID requirement. Organizers will have one year to collect just over 90,000 valid signatures to place the measure on the 2010 ballot.
As far as Sen. Joey Fillinganeis concerned, there’s more than one way to solve the issue of voter identification in Mississippi.
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Fillingane, R-Sumrall, has filed an initiative with the Mississippi Secretary of State office, that if successful, would let the state’s voters decide whether they should have to show identification at the polls.
“We got the green light on Feb. 11,” Fillingane said. “It’s not going to be easy, but then, it shouldn’t be.
Once the sponsor has drafted the proposed initiative
language, he or she must file with the Mississippi Secretary of State a
typewritten copy of the proposed initiative accompanied by an affidavit
affirming that the sponsor is a registered voter in Mississippi. The Secretary
of State then submits a copy of the initiative text to the “Revisor of the
Statutes,” an attorney in the Attorney General’s office. Within 10 working
days of receipt of the text, the Revisor makes all advisory
Date Initiative language can be submitted: Any time
Signatures are tied to vote of which office: Governor
Next Gubernatorial election: 2011
Votes cast for governor in last election: 744,039
You have Initiative rights for citizens to place constitutional amendments on the ballot for a decision by the voters, but citizens lack a process where they can pass statutes or suspend a statute passed by the Legislature.
Poll:
See the results of a poll on support for statewide initiative & referendum here.
Mississippi is the only state that once had a statewide initiative process
but lost it: not because the people rejected it, but because the state
supreme court in 1922 decided on the basis of a legal technicality to
throw the I&R provision out of the state constitution.
Fed up with the Utah Legislature’s slow progress on health system reform, Joe Jarvis is considering putting the matter in your hands.
If lawmakers fail to produce a blueprint for real change by the end of the session, Jarvis said, he will aggressively pursue a statewide ballot proposition — one that targets unsafe hospital practices and over-utilization of health care, and limits when private insurance companies can reject applicants.