signature gathering

Shoppers at Clovis’ Walmart Supercenter on Herndon Avenue last week had an almost endless array of choices, from groceries to household items to toiletries to clothing. And grassroots democracy could have been on their shopping list if they were interested.

That opportunity awaited at the table set up by Rick and Donna Baker outside the store’s entrance. Shoppers could sign petitions on whether to split California into six states; give law-abiding citizens the right to own, carry, and fire a gun; or reduce some drug and theft felonies to misdemeanors. They could even sign a petition preventing legislators from diverting children’s health care money to the general fund.

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.”

A referendum campaign to overturn an Ohio Internet-sweepstakes-cafe law appears to have fizzled, but backers may not know for sure until today.

The Committee to Protect Ohio Jobs stopped collecting signatures on an updated referendum petition yesterday and began taking inventory of what already had been gathered, spokesman Mark Weaver said.

Asked whether the committee will file with Secretary of State Jon Husted’s office by today’s deadline, Weaver said, “If we have enough (signatures), we’ll file. If we don’t, we won’t.”

Read More: here

Last Friday, Ohio’s 1851 Center for Constitutional Law, a non-partisan legal foundation, filed a federal court challenge against Senate Bill 47, which reinstitutes a residency requirement (struck down previously in federal court) and also reduces the time petitioners have to gather signatures. The law, passed earlier this year by the Republican-controlled legislature and signed into law by Republican Governor John Kasich, went into effect in June.

If you’ve been asked to sign initiatives for two competing gun measures by the same signature-gatherer, you’re not alone. And both sides are trying to put a stop to the confusion.

It turns out, some paid signature-gatherers have been carrying clipboards for both I-594 and I-591 and it’s got a number of voters up in arms.

“We have in our contract with the signature-gathering company they can’t collect for 594, too,” says Allen Gottleib, a spokesman for I-591, a measure backed by guns rights advocates that would prevent Washington state from adopting a stricter background-checks standard unless the federal government does the same thing.