Citizens in Charge

One initiative on the November ballot would guarante the right to vote on qualified initiatives — I-517. It’s an initiative on initiatives if you will. I believe the right of initiative, and to petition our government to change things when it takes actions we don’t agree with, is the single most important tool citizens have to force our state government to listen to us. They’ve proven over and over again, that no matter what we think, they believe they know what’s best for us down there in Olympia. The initiative process is one of the few ways citizens have to keep the tax-and-spend zealots in check.

Read More: here

In November the people of Washington will vote on Initiative 517. The measure would make several changes to state law concerning signature gathering for initiatives and referendums. Initiative 517 would increase the time period for gathering signatures, require proposals that receive an adequate number of valid signatures to proceed to the ballot, change the penalties for interfering with signature gathering, and increase the number of locations, both public and private, where signature gathering can occur.

Read more: here

For the first time, Citizens in Charge has sent an Initiative & Referendum Pledge to all candidates running for the legislature and for governor in this year’s Virginia elections.  The pledge asks candidates to support initiative and referendum through a constitutional amendment that if proposed by legislators and passed by voters would make the Old Dominion the 27th state where citizens have the right to initiate or refer laws to the ballot by petition.

It is more or less a given that state legislators don’t like it when the public interferes with “their” lawmaking. This is even more so for legislators in California, where citizens of the Golden State have enjoyed the right to initiate and refer laws since 1911.

Three times in recent years, California legislators have passed facially unconstitutional, thinly-veiled machete attacks on citizen initiative and referendum rights, only to be dis-armed by Governor Jerry Brown’s veto pen.

An initiative which would raise the minimum wage in the area of SeaTac, Washington’s international airport has been halted, at least temporarily, by the courts. Judge Andrea Darvas ruled that 61 signatures, the latest in a great number of signatures which were eliminated in the verification process, were also invalid due to duplicate signatures.

Advocates of the initiative originally had 2,506 signatures that were turned in in June. Normally, this would be more than sufficient to qualify the initiative. However more than 800 signatures were invalidated, and thus left a narrow margin of 43 signatures which were then cut down again by Judge Darvas’ decision, leaving the campaign 18 short.

Looks like that momentous drive for a $15-an-hour minimum wage in the city of SeaTac has hit a great big pothole – and it’s a little hard to tell at this point whether a judge’s decision in King County Superior Court represents a jolt or a head-first slam into the concrete.

Another two local ballot measures, in Spokane, have been thrown off the November ballot, reports the Spokane Spokesman-Review.

Recall elections to oust Senate President John Morse of Colorado Springs and state Sen. Angela Giron of Pueblo were once again thrown into flux this week after a Denver District Court judge’s ruling essentially made mail-ballot voting impossible. A few days later, the Colorado Supreme Court declined to hear the case on appeal and let the District Court ruling stand.

Judge Robert McGahey ruled from the bench Monday evening after hearing a day’s worth of arguments on a lawsuit brought by the Colorado Libertarian Party.

Read more: here

The Weld County Commissioners voted unanimously Monday to place a statehood initiative on the November ballot, joining three other counties interested in seceding from Colorado.

This makes Weld the fourth Colorado county, behind Sedgwick, Cheyenne and Yuma to send the idea of a statehood split to the voters. Five more counties, Kit Karson, Lincoln, Logan, Phillips and Washington, also are considering the ballot language and should be voting soon.

Read More: here

During the 2013 Legislative Session, many efforts were made to change the way Initiated Measure and Referral System works in North Dakota.  Most of these efforts in one way or another would have had a negative effect on the citizen’s ability to initiate and refer laws.  To prevent legislative over-reach it is time to restrict the legislature’s ability to alter The Powers Reserved to the People by asking the voters to approve the following constitutional amendment in North Dakota: 

After a legislative session in which legislators passed several statutes and constitutional amendments designed to restrict citizen use of initiative and referendum, North Dakota citizens are taking the first steps to place a constitutional amendment on the 2014 ballot that would protect the initiative process from legislative assaults. 

The effort, led by Dustin Gawrylow and a group called “Protect ND,” seeks to amend Article III of the constitution to block any future legislative tampering with the initiative and referendum rights of North Dakota voters.

Efforts to halt a proposed light rail system via the initiative in Vancouver, Washington, have been thwarted by the city, and now the city’s actions have been upheld in court. Superior Court Judge John Nichols’ ruled the City of Vancouver could lawfully block the initiative from the ballot because the proposed measure’s attempt to restrict the city from following the mandates of a state light rail project went “beyond the initiative power.”

“Stated another way,” Judge Nichols wrote in his opinion, “the people cannot deprive the city legislative authority of the power to do what the constitution and/or a state statute specifically permit it to do.”

Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey on Thursday certified a petition for an anti-light rail initiative, a day after a judge struck down a state law that initially had prompted Kimsey to invalidate hundreds of the signatures.

What the Vancouver City Council will do next, however, isn’t clear.

Regardless of the signature issue, Vancouver City Attorney Ted Gathe has advised the city council that the proposed ordinance violates the city charter and state law and it should not go to a public vote.

Gathe told the council last month that the proposed ordinance, crafted by a group of people who oppose the Columbia River Crossing project, falls outside the scope of the city’s initiative powers and would not be legally defensible.

DIRECT democracy is often blamed for making California ungovernable. The state keeps holding ballot initiatives (ie, what non-Americans call referendums). Voters decide that taxes must fall but spending must rise. Elected politicians struggle to make the sums add up. But last week this dysfunctional system was sideswiped. The Supreme Court, in upholding the right of gays to marry in California, may have weakened direct democracy throughout America, some fear.

On June 28, the Lucy Burns Institute released a summary of news related to the Initiative and Referendum process. Several court cases, news stories and bills to watch are profiled.

Read more: here.