Montana
A proposed referendum aimed at throwing out a revised interlocal agreement for the Whitefish “doughnut area” has been cleared for takeoff by Whitefish City Attorney Mary VanBuskirk. Supporters were given the go-ahead on Wednesday to begin collecting signatures from Whitefish city voters, Flathead County Election Manager Monica Eisenzimer said.
A ballot initiative that caps the rate that title, payday and other lenders can charge passed last week in a landslide, and supporters say it leaves Montanans safe from becoming the prey of predatory lenders. Meanwhile, industry officials say the measure will result in the closure of more than 100 Montana businesses and the loss of several times as many jobs, in addition to leaving consumers with fewer options for credit.
Last week Citizens in Charge Foundation - a partner organization to Citizens in Charge - sent a letter to Secretaries of State and Attorneys General in 12 states asking them to stop enforcing unconstitutional restrictions on ballot initiative rights. In light of recent legal action in which Kansas officials agreed with petition advocates that the state’s law against petition circulators from other states was unconstitutional, Foundation President Paul Jacob asked officials to “do the right thing” and stop enforcing similar
The “Cap The Rate” Initiative on the Montana ballot is getting a lot of attention in this off-year election. But, there’s more to Montana Initiative 164 than what meets the eye. Supporters of I-164 say the measure will protect Montanans from predatory lenders who charge up to 400% annual interest on short-term, emergency loans.
District Court Judge Jeffery Sherlock on Monday ruled that Initiative 161 qualifies for the upcoming election despite efforts to stop it. The Montana Outfitters and Guides Association filed suit against the Secretary of State’s office and Sportsmen For I-161, claiming that initiative sponsors gathered signatures illegally.
The proposed ballot initiative that would do away with outfitter-sponsored non-resident hunting licenses will be the topic of a discussion hosted by the Missoula County Democrats on Tuesday evening. The language of I-161 calls for abolishes “outfitter-sponsored nonresident big game and deer combination licenses, replacing the 5,500 outfitter-sponsored big game licenses with 5,500 additional general nonresident big game licenses”.
Next month, Montana voters will decide whether to call a Constitutional Convention. If approved, delegates would rewrite the state’s 38-year-old Constitution. Missoula County Clerk and Recorder Vicki Zeier is getting ready for the election. The Constitutional Convention isn’t the most prominent ballot initiative. Zeier says, “it’s pretty low. I actually have not been getting many calls about what this means or why it’s on the ballot.”
A district judge ruled Thursday that an initiative to cap interest rates on payday loans will stay on the Nov. 2 ballot in Montana after opponents failed to prove signatures had been improperly gathered. The state certified the initiative known as CI-164 after supporters turned in the signatures of 27,421 registered voters in 54 districts.
Opponents of Initiative 164, who want it yanked from the November ballot, on Thursday in a courtroom here painted a picture of a petition drive to qualify the measure that illegally conducted contests among signature gatherers, lied about the industry it would affect and notarized signatures before people actually signed the petition. The state, meantime, challenged them to come up with even one invalid name out of the 27,000-plus signatures approved by the Montana Secretary of State’s Office that would put the issue in the hands of the state’s voters.
A trial will begin Thursday in Polson on the “pay-day” lending industry’s attempt to remove a measure imposing new limits on the industry from the Nov. 2 ballot. The suit says Initiative 164 supporters used deceptive and illegal practices to get I-164 on the ballot. I-164 opponents sued the state in August, claiming that signature-gatherers made false statements about the measure’s content, in order to persuade people to sign petitions that qualified I-164 for the ballot.
An initiative going before voters this fall would put stronger restrictions on the controversial payday loan and title loan industries, to the point that industry representatives say it would put their stores out of business. And that’s not a bad thing for those who think the companies are little more than modern-day loan sharks.
An outfitters organization has filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent a November vote on an initiative aimed at abolishing outfitter-sponsored nonresident big-game and deer combination hunting licenses. The Montana Outfitters and Guides Association filed the lawsuit in Lewis and Clark County District Court last week contending the signatures to get the initiative on the ballot were obtained using “a statewide pattern of deceptive practices.”
The Montana Supreme Court says it won’t block a proposed ballot initiative capping the interest rates on payday loans. Initiative I-164 limits payday loans to an annual percentage rate of 36 percent. Backers gathered enough signatures earlier this year to qualify for the ballot.
The Helena Area Transportation Service’s efforts to get a transportation district initiative on the November ballot fell about 350 signatures short when the final tallies came in. Since April, HATS officials have been collecting petition signatures from people who supported placing a proposed Helena Urban Transportation District before voters this fall. Though they managed to turn in more than 7,000 signatures, not enough of them qualified to meet the 5,849 requirement.
Montana Secretary of State Linda McColloch announced today that I-161 did indeed qualify for the general election ballot and the voters will decide its fate on November 2. The controversial initiative that would eliminate outfitter set-aside big game licenses is breathtakingly close to making it on the ballot for the November 2 general election.