Citizens in Charge

After a legislative session in which legislators passed several statutes and constitutional amendments designed to restrict citizen use of initiative and referendum, North Dakota citizens are taking the first steps to place a constitutional amendment on the 2014 ballot that would protect the initiative process from legislative assaults. 

The effort, led by Dustin Gawrylow and a group called “Protect ND,” seeks to amend Article III of the constitution to block any future legislative tampering with the initiative and referendum rights of North Dakota voters.

In Colorado, a group of self-described civic and business “leaders” are launching an effort to create an unelected state commission, which would be armed with the power to review Colorado’s constitution and place sweeping new constitutional amendments on the ballot – including measures that could propose wholesale revisions of the current state constitution.

 

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 CIS observer mission will monitor the referendum in Azerbaijan.

CIS Executive Committee Executive Secretary Deputy Chairman Toktasan Buzubayev will visit Azerbaijan on March 6-19, Committee spokeswoman Maria Gutsalo told Trend News over the phone from Minsk.

<> will hold a referendum on March 18 to amend the Constitution. The Constitution was adopted in 1995. Amendments and additions were made in 2002.