Citizens in Charge

If you havent checked out our Citizens in Charge Foundation Youtube channel recently we’ve put up a handful of new videos in the past couple of months. There are also quite a few videos featuring Paul Jacob from various groups and past events. It’s definitely worth the visit, so go check it out here and make sure to rate the videos.

The staff at Citizens in Charge Foundation would like to wish you all a happy and safe Thanksgiving.

The Portland Press Herald has this brief news story today about the legal challenge to Maine’s Secretary of State over certifying petition signatures.

Since it’s Turkey-Day week and everyone is gearing up for the holiday season, the battle over “Christmas Creep” into the Thanksgiving holiday begins.

Personally, I love Christmas music, but hearing it in large amounts before Thanksgiving may be a bit much.

In April of 2008 Paul Jacob appeared on the Rob Schilling radio show, based out of Charlottesville, Virginia.  Paul discussed the ballot initiative process and his persecution in the state of Oklahoma. You can check the video out on our Youtube page here.

A lawsuit filed Tuesday to knock a people’s veto referendum off of the June 2010 ballot relies on a complete misunderstanding of settled petition law. According to the Portland Press Herald:

“John Paterson of Bernstein Shur in Portland, the attorney representing Johnson, said a review shows Dunlap should have thrown out “an extensive number” of other signatures, including entire pages circulated by people who were not registered Maine voters.”

While state legislators and special interests continue to call for restrictions on what they call a flawed citizen initiative system, yet another report has come out indicating that California’s budget woes are the fault of the legislature, not the voters and the initiative process. The nonpartisan Center for Governmental Studies has found in a preliminary report that legislators outspend the public at the ballot box nearly four-to-one!

Paul Jacob discusses the importance of the initiative and referendum process for all citizens, and for all different types of policies and beliefs.

Paul is interviewed by CPAC 2009.

 

 

There’s a new video posted on the Citizens in Charge Foundation website and Youtube channel. Grassroots Director Brandon Holmes and I metup with some of the members of the Howard County Citizens for Open Government last Friday for their appeal hearing, and talked with them over lunch afterwards. Here’s what they had to say regarding their case.

Last Friday, Citizens in Charge Foundation staff headed up to Howard County, Maryland to observe the appeals hearing regarding the rejected petition signatures at the circuit court. We previously blogged about this case here.

Here’s an interview Citizens in Charge Foundation President Paul Jacob did earlier this year while he was out in Colorado. He was a guest on the Independent Thinking show hosted by Jon Caldara of the Independence Institute, a free maket think tank based in Colorado.

Today, in a Sacramento news conference, Citizens in Charge Foundation, the only national voter rights groups dedicated to protecting and expanding the ballot initiative process, presented California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger with the November 2009 John Lilburne Award.  Governor Schwarzenegger was honored for vetoing four bills passed by the California Legislature during the 2009 session that would have restricted the initiative process in the state.