ballot initiative
A proposed bill that would attach fiscal impact statements to citizen-led initiative questions is being championed by its sponsor as a move toward transparency, but opponents said it would create an unfair disadvantage.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this morning is planning to sign the budget package passed by lawmakers that ended the state’s slide toward insolvency and three months of Capitol gridlock.
The spending plan wipes out a nearly $42-billion projected deficit with tax hikes, deep program cuts and borrowing. It hinges on $5.8 billion contained in several ballot measures that voters must consider May 19 in a special election….(READ MORE)
Based on ballot measures, voters in Appleton and Grand Chute figure to have the highest turnouts today in the Fox Cities.
Opponents of a new tougher anti-smoking ordinance for the city of Salina have begun a petition drive aimed at repealing the measure before it takes effect.
But if the petition drive succeeds in bringing the measure to a vote in April, and a repeal is approved, the current ordinance restricting restaurant smoking to between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. would remain in effect. The current ordinance doesn’t apply to bars.
Critics of embryonic stem cell research have accused three top Missouri officials of conspiring to prepare an unfair ballot summary for a proposal to bar use of public funds for abortion and human cloning.
The claim is asserted in a lawsuit by Missouri Roundtable for Life seeking a new ballot summary and cost estimate for a proposed amendment to the Missouri Constitution that proponents hope to put on the 2010 ballot.
A South Dakota House committee has endorsed a measure intended to make more organizations report where they get the money they use to influence the outcome of public votes on ballot measures.
The State Affairs Committee voted unanimously to approve HB1233, which says any organization that spends more than half its annual revenue to influence a ballot measure must file a campaign finance report disclosing where it got the money…. (READ MORE)
A judge this week rejected a lawsuit that aimed to stop two tax-lowering ballot initiatives in the Mehlville Fire Protection District.
Mehlville resident Dennis Skelton sued the district’s board of directors, claiming the ballot measures were illegal.
The board of directors voted Jan. 23 to place two measures on the ballot for the April 7 election.
Fed up with the Utah Legislature’s slow progress on health system reform, Joe Jarvis is considering putting the matter in your hands.
If lawmakers fail to produce a blueprint for real change by the end of the session, Jarvis said, he will aggressively pursue a statewide ballot proposition — one that targets unsafe hospital practices and over-utilization of health care, and limits when private insurance companies can reject applicants.
Voters would be asked to extend legislators’ terms from two years to four years under a bill that nearly 60 members of the House co-sponsored last week.
The measure raises an issue in perennial discussion over the past decade, with backers saying less-frequent elections would mean less time spent raising money to run for office.
“It would take half the money out of it,” said Rep. Hugh Holliman, a Lexington Democrat and the House majority leader. “We start the session, spend our first year here, and then we spend the whole second year campaigning.”
A group of Republican lawmakers want to eliminate Colorado’s conservation easement tax credit to funnel roughly $100 million a year into highway improvements. Conservation easements are used to protect private land of historic or environmental importance. House Minority Leader Mike May, R-Parker, and Sen. Ted Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch, said Thursday their ballot measure to suspend the credit is a sensible way to avoid levying new fees on Colorado drivers and repair the state’s roads.
After the most expensive campaign on a social issue in history, the state Supreme Court in San Francisco will hold a hearing on the strength of the same-sex marriage ban, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
Students who spearheaded a new teen center in Fillmore will help stage its grand opening Saturday to display its activities and give thanks for the community’s support.
The One Step Center opened in September for teens 13-19 but was not fully operational until this week, when several student assistants joined the staff and the center spread out, now occupying two rooms in Trinity Episcopal Church’s parish hall.
“It’s someplace where kids can go and not worry about being judged,” said Stephanie Gonzalez, 17, secretary of One Step’s all-teen board of directors.
Legislators like State Senator Frank Morse (R – Albany) and State Representative Larry Galizio (D – Tigard) Larry are talking about reforming the initiative process. For one thing, both want to give the Legislature a chance to review and react to any proposed initiative before it goes to the ballot; once signatures were gathered, the measure would not go directly to the voters, but would go to the Legislature first.
In addition, according to the Register-Guard:
DENVER ”¢ If Coloradans were hoping for a quiet campaign season after last fall’s record number of ballot measures, they may be in for a disappointment. A potential ballot measure is in the works that could be labeled “Son of Referendum C.”
House Majority Leader Paul Weissman, D-Louisville, is promising to introduce a referendum in late February that could extend Referendum C indefinitely. Referendum C, passed by voters in 2005, allowed the state to keep more than $5 billion in taxes that otherwise would have been refunded to residents.
With events moving so rapidly, Department of Water and Power General Manager H. David Nahai told the council that he couldn’t give voters a financial analysis of the plan — including its effect on electricity rates — until this month, four weeks before the election.