Citizens in Charge

Corporations and some of the wealthiest Americans have spent more than $1 billion in the past 18 months on ballot initiatives in just 11 states, an unprecedented explosion of money used to pass new laws and influence the public debate.

According to campaign finance reports in 11 states with long histories of initiatives and referendums, the billion dollars spent since the beginning of 2012 is more than has been spent in any two-year period. Supporters and opponents of ballot measures spent nearly as much, $965 million, in 2005 and 2006.

The folks over at Ballotpedia, Planet Earth’s No. 1 wiki on election-related matters, have released a list of the “5 Most Notable Ballot Measures” in tomorrow’s election. Here are the five:

Amendment 66 (Colorado) - Tax Increase for Education
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Colorado_Tax_Increase_for_Education,_Amendment_66_%282013%29

Initiative 522 (Washington) - Mandatory Labeling of Genetically Engineered Food Measure

The National Taxpayers Union released their “2013 General Election Ballot Guide: A Taxpayer’s Perspective” this week. The guide features a state-by-state run-down of “measures, propositions, initiatives, referenda, proposals, and amendments … listed by state with subheadings for statewide, countywide, and local issues.”

One noteworthy endorsement is of Washington state’s Initiative 517, or the “Protect the Initiative Act.” NTU gives I-517 a positive rating for its provisions which bolster the initiative process.

http://www.ntu.org/ballotguide2013.html

The various measures, propositions, initiatives, referenda, proposals, and amendments are listed by state with subheadings for statewide, countywide, and local issues.

Visit the guide: here

I am not a big fan of recall elections. This example of direct democracy is largely an artifact of the progressive era in American politics, when it was assumed that state legislatures were corrupt gaggles of bought-and-paid-for politicians. Allowing the voters to send the rascals packing ahead of schedule was supposed to be a remedy for the said corruption.

It rarely works that way. It is the responsibility of elected legislatures to deal with genuine corruption, either in their own assemblies or in the executive branch of the government. When they fail to do so, it is the responsibility of the voters to remember that in the next regularly scheduled election.

A recent Gallup Poll shows that most Americans favor national referendums on key issues.  The poll, conducted July 6-7, tested 3 political issues first promoted by Doctor George Gallup in a 1978 Reader’s Digest article.

More than two-thirds of Americans, 68% of respondents, favored a proposal to “Require a nationwide popular vote on any issue if enough voters signed a petition to request a vote on the issue.”

Smaller majorities favored Gallup’s other ideas: shortening the presidential campaigns to five weeks (61%) and a single national presidential primary day, instead of individual state primaries on various dates (58%).

A majority of Americans back three political reform ideas, including 68% who favor national referenda on key issues if enough voters sign a petition to request a popular vote on the issue. Roughly six in 10 favor a shortened presidential campaign lasting five weeks in the fall of an election year and a nationwide primary election to select each party’s candidates for president.

On June 28, the Lucy Burns Institute released a summary of news related to the Initiative and Referendum process. Several court cases, news stories and bills to watch are profiled.

Read more: here.

It is an unfortunate side effect of stating your opinion via a petition; someone who is on the other side of the issue might not like it.

Recently, folks who signed a petition to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker have been the victims of retaliation from opponents of the recall. The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, after scanning the petition sheets, provided the scans publicly online in an effort toward transparency.  After which, opponents of the recall effort, a group called “Verify the Recall” created searchable databases of the scanned petitions.  Then some anti-recall individuals created a Facebook page, now removed, threatening to publish addresses of signatories or inform business owners of employees who signed the petition.

Today, unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the Cert petition filed by the Initiative & Referendum Institute, et al, seeking review of a DC Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding a 1998 regulation promulgated by the U.S. Postal Service that denies petition circulators access to walkways leading to post offices. In addition to the Initiative & Referendum Institute, a number of state and local grassroots groups joined the 13-year lawsuit against the Postal Service, including two national groups, the Humane Society of the U.S. and U.S. Term Limits.

The current situation in Washington, likely to get worse in the next few years rather than better, should turn the attention of progressives and all fervent believers in democracy to initiative and referendum (I&R) as a way to preserve at least some semblance of democracy.

Yes, I&R has been abused in some places, at times. But it has done a world of good at other times, in other places.

Note how democracy has been strangled by the Republicans’ openly discriminatory gerrymandering of congressional and legislative districts! And note how I&R gets around that problem.

Read more at The Daily Kos

Late last year, the Lucy Burns Institute published a booklet entitled, “Local Ballot Initiatives,” written by Leslie Graves, president of the institute and executive director of the wiki-based website Ballotpedia.org, to educate citizens on how they can use initiatives and referendums to reform their hometown governments.

Through several articles, recollections by activists (including Citizens in Charge President Paul Jacob) and real-world examples, Graves outlines how the petition process works and how it is beneficial to initiating change at the local level.

In 2011, young Muna N’Diaye was kidnapped by her father and taken to Mali.  Her mother, Dr. Nolle Hunter, naturally wants her daughter back. To bring Muna home, Dr. Hunter has worked with the State Department’s Office of Children’s Issues as well as Senator Mitch McConnell and her local congressional representative, Hal Rogers of Kentucky.

Then, Hunter went to the White House’s “We the People” petition website in an attempt to bring more attention to the situation.

Do you remember how funny it was when a jokester at the White House’s “We the People” site got more than 34,000 people to sign a petition asking the administration to build a Death Star? And did you chuckle when you saw the administration’s lighthearted and good-natured response? Hah hah hah. But wait.