Virginia
Occupy Winston-Salem members, saying their rights to free speech and assembly are slipping away, on Saturday began collecting signatures on a petition calling on the Winston-Salem City Council to “respect and uphold the right of citizen groups to conduct open-air meetings on city property.”
Members of Occupy Winston-Salem and Walkupy, a group of Occupy supporters marching from Washington to Atlanta, also met Councilman Dan Besse on the steps of City Hall on Saturday afternoon. Occupy Winston-Salem, like other Occupy movements across the country, is protesting corporate influence in politics and inequity among Americans.
“We have a separation of church and state,” said Kayla Cox, an Occupy member from Winston-Salem. “We need a separation of money and politics.”
Here’s a piece from the Washington Examiner:
Last weekend on “The Score” radio show, my colleague Scott Lee interviewed Paul Jacob, president of Citizens in Charge, a group dedicated to “…protecting and expanding the initiative and referendum process.” Paul made an impassioned case for initiative and referendum, but also noted that Virginia, the cradle on American political thought, lacks the process almost entirely. How could this possibly be? There’s no easy place to look for an answer. Virginia does hold regular statewide referendums on constitutional amendments, bond debt and the like. But all those matters come from the General Assembly and even then only after a very long and laborious process.
As air travelers continue to voice their discontent with the Transportation Safety Administration’s invasive new security procedures, Washington DC’s Metro transit system has instituted random bag searches, and many travelers are just as unhappy about the “Security Theater” on the train as in the airport.
A hearing will be held next Thursday, December 9th at the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, VA to determine whether Maryland’s election law imposes constitutionally impermissible limitations on the right of referendum by requiring an excessive “triple match” on petition signatures. The case is called Paul Kendall v. v. Ann Balcerzak and will be heard by Panel III, Courtroom 3, Room 223 at 9:30 AM.
Virginia voters Tuesday will face three ballot initiatives that would amend the state’s constitution and affect tax and budgeting policy. None of the three questions has been especially controversial, but elections officials are urging voters to familiarize themselves with the issues ahead of time to speed the voting process Tuesday and avoid lines at the polls.
The James Madison Center for Free Speech in Terre Haute, Indiana issued the following press release today about a very important case that could potentially come before the U.S. Supreme Court in the near future:
The James Madison Center for Free Speech issued a press release today regarding events unfolding in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District:
Some folks are upset that a bust of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin was put up at the National D-Day Memorial and have started up a petition to have it removed. This is not a petition signature drive to place a measure on the ballot. The National D-Day Memorial is located in Virginia, a state which has no state-wide initiative process.
To check out the petition click here.
Portsmouth Mayor James Holley has been given until next Friday to resign his position, finding that a recall petition with nearly 9,000 signatures was sufficient to trigger a recall election.
A group of citizens have turned in nearly 9,000 signatures - in a city of just over 100,000 residents - for the recall of Mayor James Holley.
We’ve previously blogged about the attempts out in Washington state to make public the names and information of citizens who sign petitions. Unfortunately, that may be happening here in Northern Virginia as well. This article in the Sun Gazette newspaper explains how in Arlington, VA the petition signatures are public record if requested.
Never short on examples of the many attempts around the country to take away the 
peoples’ right to initiative and referendum by gutting the process, Norfolk, VA residents narrowly escaped a doubling of the signature requirement to put measures on the city ballot Wednesday. Thanks to the strong opposition shown by tho
The streets of Washington, DC are lined with the offices of non-profits, advocacy groups, and other organizations. Most people who live, work, or travel in DC probably don’t even notice when they go past the Heritage Foundation or the Brookings Institution, much less wonder about what those organizations do. With our offices nestled among those of orthodontists, architects and insurance agencies 25 miles outside of the District in Lake Ridge, VA, Citizens in Charge Foundation doesn’t always fall so far under the radar.
A couple of weeks ago we interviewed Virginia citizens outside a townhall in Reston, VA. There was a lot of support from both sides of the aisle for bringing the process to the state and giving citizens more of a voice. So why don’t Virginia citizens have initiative & referendum rights? Let’s take a look at the history…