Citizens in Charge

Organizers of a Florida campaign for medical use of marijuana say they expect to submit enough voter signatures this week to get the issue on ballots in time for the November election.

State law provides that campaign organizers have to get 683,149 voter signatures validated by the counties before Feb. 1. and almost one in three backers are rejected due to failing to meet requirements. Still, Polls show the petition has a good chance of success

A wealthy Orlando trial lawyer, John Morgan, has committed $3 million to the campaign.

Read more: here

There is little doubt about the historical veracity of one statement in the text of a vetoed California law that would have required at least some signatures for ballot initiatives to be gathered by volunteers instead of paid workers:

“The voters amended the California Constitution to reserve for themselves the power of the initiative because financially powerful interests, including railroad companies, exercised a corrupting influence over state politics.”

Sheer math suggests the number of signatures submitted for a 2014 ballot measure on the Sacramento Kings arena may have a narrow margin to succeed.

According to the city clerk’s office Friday, there were more than 34,000 signatures in support of the measure submitted to the Sacramento County registrar’s office, along with more than 15,000 signature withdrawal forms. Typically, not all signatures submitted hold up as valid; some people who signed either won’t be registered voters, or won’t be registered in the city of Sacramento. Some duplicates or signatures that can’t be verified because of illegibility are also possible.

Paul Jacob, president of Citizens in Charge Foundation, speaks on Nelson Mandela (just prior to Mandela’s death), and his example in pursuing peaceful political change. Jacob also addresses Winnie Mandela’s calls for violence and compares that with the peaceful opportunities for change in America; citizen initiative, referendum and recall.

Watch the video: here

A group wants Columbus residents to vote on whether the city should be paying for its professional hockey team’s home arena, and it has collected enough signatures to get the issue on the May ballot.

That means voters will be asked whether to end the city’s purchase contract for Nationwide Arena, home of the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Read More: here

In Sacramento, California, a planned basketball arena for the NBA’s Sacramento Kings is the flashpoint of citizen action.  Two citizen groups, Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork and Voters for a Fair Arena Deal are opposed to the fact that the arena would be largely financed through a taxpayer subsidy totaling $258 million.

The two groups have gathered 40,000 signatures, almost double the number required to place the issue of the subsidy on next June’s ballot.  The groups are expecting to have enough valid signatures to qualify the referendum despite opposition groups claiming they have 15,226 “rescissions” from citizens who reportedly want their signatures removed from the petition opposing the subsidy, though no signatures have yet been validated.

After months of controversy and door-to-door politicking, opponents of the public subsidy for Sacramento’s proposed NBA arena say they will submit as many as 40,000 signatures to city elections officials today in their quest to get the issue placed before voters on June’s ballot.

It will be several more weeks, however, before Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork and a spinoff group, Voters for a Fair Arena Deal, learn whether their signature-gathering campaigns were successful. The groups need only 22,000 valid signatures but realize that many of the signatures they’ve gathered, as is typical, will be proven invalid.

Wisconsin legislators have taken the first step to amend the state Constitution to make it harder to recall them, the governor, attorney general and other state officials.

The potential change follows a record 13 recall elections that targeted the governor, lieutenant governor and 11 state senators over a one-year period. Three Republican senators were recalled.

Read More: here

California has a rich tradition of citizens taking control through the initiative process. Nothing should be done to diminish that.

However, the Public Policy Institute of California has released an interesting report on possible reforms of the process. The 20-page report released in October concludes with three proposals:

• Connect the legislative and initiative processes. Nearly 80 percent of those surveyed by the institute supported the idea of having initiative sponsors meet with legislators to seek compromises before an issue is placed on the ballot.

Read More: here.

Federal Way voters had just one local ballot proposition during the Nov. 5 general election.

Passing with nearly 76 percent of the vote, Proposition No. 1 will restrict the submission of all citizen initiative petitions to the general elections because the voter participation is historically higher at general elections, and to avoid the added expense of a special election.

Read more: here

The following material provided by the Yes on I-517 campaign:

I-517’s primary policy change is guaranteeing you the right to vote on qualified initiatives.

The voters’ right to initiative and referendum was an amendment to the Washington State Constitution and was initially referred by the Legislature to the people. The measure appeared on the ballot on Nov. 5, 1912 and amended Article II, Section I. It was approved by over 71 percent of the voters. The importance of the voters’ ability to address issues directly through the initiative and referendum process has only grown in importance since that time over a century ago.

Next month Initiative 517 will be on the ballot. It deals with several issues regarding the initiative process including signature gathering and the right of voters to cast a vote on an initiative which has met the required number of valid signatures gathered within the required time frame.

Toledo Blade columnist Marilou Johanek writes in praise of a lawsuit, Citizens in Charge v. Husted, filed in federal court by Ohio’s 1851 Center for Constitutional Law and seeking to overturn Senate Bill 47, which restricts non-residents from helping to gather signatures and reduces the time sponsors have to petition. SB 47 passed on entirely partisan votes in the legislature and was signed into law by Republican Gov. John Kasich earlier this year. 

Johanek quotes Maurice Thompson, the 1851 Center’s executive director: “We like the checks on government that the initiative and referendum provides, and the opportunities for citizens to take lawmaking power into their own hands and deal directly with the issues.”

In recent days, supporters of Initiative 517 in Washington state are making their voices heard on the editorial pages of the state’s newspapers.  A recent op-ed article State Senator Ann Rivers of Washington’s 18th District was published in the Columbian is one of a number of opinion pieces endorsing I-517.

Sen. Rivers praised the positive effects the initiative would have on protecting the process from obstructionist legal battles as well as making petitioning safer and allowing more time for signature collection.