Monthly Archive for Initiative and Referendum
Initiative and Referendum Stories Posted in May 2008
Angle Files for Property Tax Reform Initiative
Category: Initiative and Referendum · State: Nevada · Source: Reno Gazette-Journal
After two failed attempts, former assemblywoman Sharron Angle said Tuesday she filed enough signatures to qualify her property tax reform initiative for the Nov. 4 ballot. Angle could not give a solid number for the signatures she turned in to 17 county clerks but said it is more than the required 58,628. "We're over the minimum," she said. "We have a cushion in every county." Angle, who's opposing state Sen. Bill Raggio, R-Reno, in the Aug. 12 Republican primary, was the only petition organizer to submit signatures Tuesday.
Senate Pulls Pay-Per-Signature Ban From Measure
Category: Initiative and Referendum · State: Missouri · Source: Columbia Tribune
Missouri senators rejected a proposal yesterday that would have prohibited initiative petition sponsors from paying circulators for each signature they collect. Senators stripped the pay-per-signature ban from a bill that imposes several other new restrictions on citizen initiatives. The election-year legislation comes after the supporters of several initiatives paid professional out-of-state petition circulators to solicit signatures from Missouri voters during the past several months. Some signature gatherers, holding several clipboards at a time, were accused of misleading people into signing petitions they didn’t necessarily support or understand. Still remaining in the bill are provisions that would bar non-Missourians from gathering signatures and stop people from passing around petitions for more than one ballot measure at a time.
Dan Walters: Is Initiative Process the Cause or Result of State's Malaise?
Category: Initiative and Referendum · State: California · Source: Sacramento Bee
The old philosophical argument over whether the chicken or the egg first emerged from the primordial ooze has a political counterpart in California's circular debate over the initiative process. Is directly presenting proposed laws and constitutional amendments to voters a safety valve by which they can do what the Legislature is unwilling or unable to do, the cause of the Capitol's endemic inability to function effectively, or, perhaps, both a symptom of our political malaise and a cure that worsens the disease? It's been nearly a century since reformist Gov. Hiram Johnson and the Legislature adopted the initiative and other reforms to break the political stranglehold of the Southern Pacific Railroad - dubbed "The Octopus" in a muckraking novel of the era. But the initiative's use as a major policy tool is of much more recent vintage, dating from the enactment of Proposition 13, the landmark property tax limit measure, 30 years ago next month.
Steve Wiegand: Fat Chance of Reforming Initiative Process
Category: Initiative and Referendum · State: California · Source: Sacramento Bee
One of the most admirable traits of political reformers is their earnest optimism. I thought of this last week, when Bob Stern dropped by the office. Stern is the president of the Center for Governmental Studies, which is a Los Angeles-based nonprofit, nonpartisan outfit that does research into various governmental and political issues and recommends ways to make them better. An attorney by trade, Stern was one of the guiding lights behind California's Political Reform Act of 1974 and was a longtime consigliere to the Fair Political Practices Commission. In other words, he knows something about the reform racket. Anyway, he was making the rounds of Capitol press corps offices, dropping off copies of a new 402-page tome called "Democracy by Initiative: Shaping California's Fourth Branch of Government."
Some Payday-Loan Foes Drop Initiative Support
Category: Arizona · State: Arizona · Source: Arizona Daily Star
An initiative drive to put the payday-loan industry out of business in Arizona may falter because of a split among supporters. Members of an organization dubbed Stop Payday Predators announced Friday that they no longer are backing the initiative. State Sen. Debbie McCune Davis, D-Phoenix, who is chairing that group, said she believes the money being raised to put that measure on the November ballot would be better spent killing an industry-backed initiative that would make payday-loan stores a permanent presence in Arizona. That leaves only the Stop Payday Loans committee, headed by Rep. Marian McClure, R-Tucson, to pursue the initiative to abolish the industry. McClure said Friday that she is counting the signatures already collected and will decide in the next two weeks whether to pursue the ballot measure.
Other Monthly Archives for Initiative and Referendum
- May 2008 (5)