Citizens in Charge

In keeping with state law, the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office will be holding a series of publichearings throughout the state regarding initiatives scheduled to be on the Nov. 8 general election ballot.

According to the Daily Journal:

Pamela Weaver, spokeswoman for the secretary of state’s office, says statements from all nine hearings will be available online at the secretary of state’s website and will be published in an educational booklet.

(LAKE RIDGE, VA) – Citizens in Charge, a national voter rights group focused on the ballot initiative and referendum process, today called on Californians to contact their legislators and demand they defeat legislation that would require people who gather petition signatures on citizen-initiated ballot measures to wear large signs or “badges” on their chest.

“The people of California face many problems,” said Citizens in Charge President Paul Jacob. “But perhaps the most serious is having a majority of legislators with the arrogance to actually force citizens to wear a sign on their chest when petitioning to put an initiative on the ballot.”

The Washington Post has an article today about a teenager in the Washington town of Longview who is, like many citizens across the country, sick of red-light cameras in his town. Though he’s not even old enough to vote, he’s discovered that the citizen initiative process can be a powerful tool:

Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval has signed Assembly Bills 81 and 82, and Senate Bill 133 into law, making several important changes to the petition process both good and bad.

San Francisco has one of the more unique initiatives in the works, a ban on male circumcision. We’ve talked about it before on our blog and our newswire here, and it seems the initiative is now facing a bit of blowback:

Jon Fleischman at FlashReport has a post up today from Citizens in Charge President Paul Jacob discussing the awful legislation currently making its way through the California legislature:

Though Colorado’s famous Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, was approved by voters in 1992, a group made up of career politicians has recently filed a lawsuit claiming that the measure violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of a “republican form of government” in every state.

In case you missed Paul’s response to Ballot Initiative Strategy Center’s Justine Sarver last week, the Fox and Hound’s Daily blog has is up today:

In last week’s edition of The Colorado Statesman, and article from Ernest Luning talks about our transpartisan panel event last month in Denver:

Clarion Ledger Editorial Director David Hampton argues in a recent editorial, ”It would be pretty easy to stand in front of a Wal-Mart and gather signatures on a petition to repeal or lower property taxes, or any taxes for that matter, in just about any city in Mississippi.” Clearly Hampton has never tried it before: the fact is that most attempts to qualify for the ballot fail for lack of signatures.

Writing for the Missouri Record, Patrick Tuohey says:

According to Washington University professor Gregory Magarian, “Missouri appears to be a national leader in overturning voter initiatives.” The legislature has acted against the publicly stated will of the people on matters dealing with handguns (2003), minimum wage (2006), clean energy (2008) and school funding (2009) in addition to the 2010 puppy mill vote. Sponsors of the measure are right to ask, if the people’s will can so easily be overridden, what point is there to a petition process in the first place?