Daily Archive
Stories Posted on October 30, 2008
The Aussie ballot keeps voters down under
Category: Ballot Access · State: New Jersey Oklahoma · Source: NewJersey.com
They used to call him "the man with the golden arm."
Nick Caputo was the Essex County clerk for 29 years. Among the clerk's duties was the task of putting capsules representing the political parties into a drum and then giving it a good spin. Apparently Caputo had calculated that centrifugal force would keep the capsules in place. And the Democrats got Row A for all but one year of his tenure.
Meanwhile, over in Hudson County the choice was made by picking Ping-Pong balls at random. But if a smart pol put the Democratic ball in the freezer overnight, it was Row A all the way.
Such are the drawbacks of the Australian ballot. That's the technical name for the type of government-created ballot that's been in use in America since the 1880s. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But the Australian ballot made all sorts of mischief possible. Worse, it solidified a two-party system that gives us no real choice at the polls. On Tuesday, Americans get to choose between the big-government party and the bigger-government party. Which is which? It's hard to tell these days.
This is fine for liberals, but conservatives have nowhere to go, except to a third-party candidate who has no real chance of winning. That's no accident, says J. David Gillespie, a semi-retired political science professor from Charleston, S.C., and author of "Politics at the Periphery: Third Parties in Two-Party America."....
Federal court lawsuit asks judge to strike down Ohio referendum law
Category: Election Reform · State: Ohio · Source: Gongwer News Service
A Virginia-based organization said Wednesday it is asking a federal judge to declare unconstitutional an Ohio law regulating the voter referendum process, and to permanently block its enforcement.
Citizens in Charge, a Woodbridge, Va. group, said it joined other Ohio plaintiffs in filing a complaint to overturn three sections of law that make it more difficult to place new statutes before voters for review.
"Ohio's regulations are so draconian that only two referendums have qualified for the ballot in the last 79 years," said Paul Jacob, the group's president.
One of the two is Issue 5, a referendum the payday lending industry succeeded in placing on Tuesday's ballot that would negate a legislatively imposed cap on interest charges.
Mr. Jacob said current statutes allow an attorney general to significantly delay the beginning of a referendum petition drive by declining to approve a written summary that must be submitted.
In the case of Issue 5, he said, referendum proponents lost at least 40% of their 90-days to gather petition signatures due to delays in obtaining approval for the summary statement.
"This means that citizens could lose significant time or, in extreme cases, most or all of their constitutionally allotted time - thus, totally thwarting the entire process," he said in a news release.
Attorney David Langdon of Cincinnati filed a lawsuit on the group's behalf Tuesday in U.S. District Court.
It asks a federal judge to strike down requirements that a summary be submitted and approved by an attorney general prior to gathering signatures; that petitions be distributed in at least 44 of the state's 88 counties; and that paid petition drive managers and circulators file with the state before gathering signatures.
The complaint was filed against Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner in her official capacity.
Citizens in Charge said it seeks to preserve the initiative and referendum process in the 24 states that already have it, and to expand the system to the remaining 26 states.
5 California governors oppose drug initiative
Category: Crime · State: California · Source: San Francisco Gate
Five California governors came together Thursday in rare bipartisan opposition to a ballot initiative they fear would harm public safety by easing punishment for drug offenders.
Proposition 5 would divert tens of thousands of drug offenders annually from prisons or jails into treatment programs. It expands on a similar initiative approved by voters in 2000.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was joined by predecessors Gray Davis, Pete Wilson, Jerry Brown, and George Deukmejian at Thursday's event at a Los Angeles County's criminal courts building in downtown.
"We've cracked down on sex offenders and drug dealers and gangs," Schwarzenegger said. "Proposition 5 will take us in the opposite direction ... It was written by people who care more about the rights of criminals."
The Yes on 5 campaign said the governors' united front shows California prisons are a bipartisan failure. Under the governors' collective watch, prison crowding ballooned to the point that federal judges are considering population limits despite the state's construction of 21 new prisons since the 1990s.