distribution requirement
Oklahoma’s legislature wrapped up its 2011 legislative session Friday, and while the state still has arguably the toughest petition process in the nation, it didn’t get any tougher this year.
While the state ranked high on our grading scale, Missouri’s strange signature distribution requirement results in only two-thirds of a the state having a petition process, but an amendment pending in the Senate may change that.
A letter sent Wednesday to members of the Oklahoma House of Representatives by Citizens in Charge President Paul Jacob shows increasing criticism of a plan by some Oklahoma legislators to make state petition proponents gather signatures based on congressional districts instead of statewide.
Patrick B. McGuigan of CapitolBeatOK reports:
Oklahoma already has one of the nation’s toughest petition processes: state lawmakers have suceeeded in making the process so hard that few citizen initiatives ever make the ballot. One citizen initiative, State Question 744 from the 2010 ballot, apparently has the legislature running scared.
After blogging yesterday about some of the petty ways initiative opponents try to block people from excercising their voting rights by throwing out their signatures on a petition, I started thinking about the wider struggle to protect those rights. Special interests and many politicians simply don’t like the initiative process because it threatens their hold on power. The last thing they want is for you, the voter, to have a say in how their government is run.
While searching through countless bills across the nation in an attempt to provide an open and accessible voting process, I continually stumble across legislation that begs the question, “What were they thinking?” Most recently Nevada Senate Bill 212, which passed through the Legislature this year and was signed into effect on June 4th. As it turns out, this bill makes a change that has been struck down in federal court twice!
The Blockbuster Democracy Blog tells us how NOT to reform Nevada’s ballot initiative process. A bill moving through the state legislature would require the signatures of 10% of voters in all 42 assembly districts. Joe Matthews points out that “That would effectively end ballot initiatives in the state. Such a process would be far too expensive and time-consuming for anyone but the wealthiest of the wealthy.”