California

California

California is a big state with a long history of citizen legislating through ballot initiatives. So it’s little wonder that all but one of the most expensive ballot initiatives in the last 14 years have taken place in the Golden State: There are big corporate interests on both sides, and they’re willing to spend money to tilt the playing field in their favor.

Check out the most expensive ballot initiatives since 2000, data courtesy the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center:


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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.

Citizens of Sacramento, California, won’t get a vote on the city’s decision to use $258 million from taxpayers to fund the construction of a new arena for the NBA’s Sacramento Kings. Sacramento Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley found the petitions forms contained too many errors, which violated state election laws. 

In addition, Judge Frawley indicated he believed the proposed ballot measure would have violated the city’s charter, by inhibiting the council’s ability to manage the city’s finances.

With exactly two weeks to go to collect the signatures required to put the recently-approved Bergamot Transit Village on the November ballot, opponents of the development will likely hire professional signature gatherers.

The decision comes at the end of the second weekend in the 30-day period that opponents of the 765,000 square foot project have had to gather signatures since the City Council officially approved the development on February 11 in a 4-to-3 vote. (“Santa Monica City Council Narrowly Approves Bergamot Transit Village,” February 5)

More than 50 opponents of a proposed pension reform measure that would affect employees of Ventura County showed up at Home Depots in Simi Valley, Newbury Park and Camarillo over the weekend to dissuade individuals from signing a petition supporting the reform.

The demonstrators held signs and spoke out loudly against the measure, calling it, among other things, misleading and draconian.

Among the protestors was Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean.

In an expected move, one of the groups supporting an arena ballot measure says it’s planning to sue the city of Sacramento after the city clerk rejected a ballot measure for inconsistencies, according to KCRA-TV Channel 3.

The organizers of Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork are waiting to look at material from the city clerk before launching a legal challenge, according to KCRA.

On Friday, the clerk rejected the ballot measure for things such as inconsistent dates, missing language in some versions of petitions, some lacking required wording and not including the names and signatures of proponents.

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Shirley Concolino, Sacramento’s City Clerk, announced last Friday that she was disqualifying the petition filed with her office containing more than 40,000 signatures to put a proposed new arena for the Sacramento Kings to a public vote this June.  The arena is to be partially funded through a taxpayer subsidy, which the group known as STOP (Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork) opposes and seeks to petition to the ballot.

ABC News 10 reports that the city clerk invalidated petitions based on various “election code violations,” though mostly technical mistakes, including a missing notice of intent on some petitions and faulty dates on others.

It appears opponents of the city of Sacramento’s subsidy to bring a new arena to downtown are a step closer to having voters decide.

The petition backed by the Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork, STOP, needed 22,000 valid signatures go get on the June ballot. According to the Sacramento County Voter Registrar’s Office, 22,498 signatures of the 34,532 submitted were validated, that’s 65.2 percent.

Here a ballot initiative, there a ballot initiative, everywhere in California a ballot initiative.

How did we get here? About a hundred years ago the processes of direct democracy spread across the country. States gave their citizens the ability to directly enact laws (via the ballot initiative), to directly repeal laws (via the referendum), and to oust elected officials (via the recall). The purpose of direct democracy is to empower average citizens and decrease the power than moneyed interests may have over elected officials. Sounds quaint, doesn’t it?

The opponents of a marijuana cultivation ordinance passed by the Board of Supervisors last month have submitted signatures for a referendum to stop the new measure from taking effect.

The coalition of marijuana advocates making up the Emerald Unity Coalition and the Community Alliance to Ban Illegal Cannabis Cultivation submitted the signatures to the Lake County Registrar of Voters Office on Wednesday afternoon, a day before the county ordinance was to have taken effect.

Registrar of Voters Diane Fridley said the raw count of signatures submitted totaled 4,222.

Concern over variations in the ballots used to collect signatures to put the downtown Sacramento arena before voters led to a pause in signature verification this week, and the count had to be restarted Friday.

“We had some sorting to do,” Jill LaVine, Sacramento County Registrar of Voters, said in describing the pause. That resulted in her office issuing no update on how many signatures had been verified of the 34,000 submitted by groups concerned about the arena plan. Earlier this week, The4000, a group opposing the ballot measure and supporting the arena, called for further scrutiny of the ballots after determining at least five different versions were used last summer and fall to collect voter signatures.

After two lawsuits failed to block a vote on a San Diego referendum over the city council’s Barrio Logan land use plan, those opposed to the referendum claimed the process was “undemocratic.”

Attorney Jan Goldsmith took issue with that in an op-ed in the local Union-Tribune newspaper. “The use of referendums to challenge legislative decisions is legal and has deep roots in democracy,” wrote Goldsmith. “There is nothing undemocratic about leaving decisions to San Diego voters, which is all a referendum does.”

Since 2011, there have been three referendums in San Diego challenging enactments by the city council and putting those ordinances before voters.

Since 2011, the San Diego City Council has faced three referendums challenging its decisions. Another is out for signature. The most recent one, having to do with the Barrio Logan land use plan, has generated frustration among those supporting the council decision. Calling the referendum process undemocratic, a group opposing the referendum filed a lawsuit seeking to stop it. They lost twice.

There is nothing about which to be frustrated. The use of referendums to challenge legislative decisions is legal and has deep roots in democracy. There is nothing undemocratic about leaving decisions to San Diego voters, which is all a referendum does. It is a constitutional right in California.

The entire effort for a ballot measure on the proposed downtown Sacramento arena has been messy, with the public left in the dark too often.

People who want a vote on the arena subsidy accuse city officials of hiding the ball on how much taxpayers would actually fork over. But they’re not doing themselves any favors by playing games with their petitions.

They should be straight with voters and release all the various petitions they submitted last month. James Cathcart, a leader of Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork, told The Sacramento Bee’s editorial board Wednesday that he doesn’t know if that will happen.

Read more: here

The proponents of a statewide pension reform initiative are crying foul at the ballot summary prepared for their proposed constitutional amendment by Attorney General Kamala Harris.  San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed called the language “inaccurate” and “pejorative” and “a bit of a problem.”

“You read this and you don’t know what we’re trying to do,” Reed added. The first sentence of the AG’s summary was most problematic according to Reed. It reads: “Eliminates constitutional protections for vested pension and retiree healthcare benefits for current public employees, including teachers, nurses, and peace officers, for future work performed.”