initiatives

A California law that requires the sponsors of ballot initiatives to identify themselves on the petitions they circulate to voters violates the constitutional law to speak anonymously, a divided federal appeals court ruled Monday.

“Forced disclosures of this kind are significant encroachments on First Amendment rights,” the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said in a 2-1 decision.

Coming to a grocery store or other public area near you: an army of people seeking your signatures on petitions for initiatives that could appear on the November ballot. The army isn’t just for one ballot measure. Petition holders could be seeking signatures for as many as 22 separate measures.

The race is now on to get voters to sign those petitions and to get interested in the issues, which range from realigning the state House of Representatives, to cut off severance tax revenue to communities that ban fracking, to overturn the 2013 law that limited large-capacity ammunition magazines to 15 rounds, and to require labeling of genetically-modified food.

Coming to a grocery store or other public area near you: an army of people seeking your signatures on petitions for initiatives that could appear on the November ballot. The army isn’t just for one ballot measure. Petition holders could be seeking signatures for as many as 22 separate measures.

The race is now on to get voters to sign those petitions and to get interested in the issues, which range from realigning the state House of Representatives, to cut off severance tax revenue to communities that ban fracking, to overturn the 2013 law that limited large-capacity ammunition magazines to 15 rounds, and to require labeling of genetically-modified food.

Two organizations, Judicial Watch and Allied Educational Foundation, have filed an amicus curiae brief in the federal lawsuit, Citizens in Charge v. Husted, which seeks a permanent injunction against an Ohio law that bans the recruitment of out-of-state petitioners to collect signatures for ballot initiatives.

“This Ohio law unlawfully limits the right of the people to govern themselves through the initiative process,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Ohio’s law intrudes on a fundamental right not often emphasized by politicians – the citizens’ right to place additional checks on the power of their elected representatives.”

Restricting Nevada initiative petitions to a single subject invites legal challenges that stall the process and prevents backers from gathering signatures by a mandated deadline, critics of the requirement told the Nevada Supreme Court.

Las Vegas attorney Kermitt Waters on Tuesday asked justices to make it easier for groups to qualify measures for the ballot.

Waters brought the challenge on behalf of Citizen Outreach and two other groups. They argue the limitation makes it nearly impossible for citizens to bring proposals before voters.

Read More: here

Yesterday, Circuit Court Judge Mary McGowan issued an 11-page decision declaring Act 1413’s restrictions on initiative and referendum petitions to be unconstitutional and enjoining Arkansas Secretary of State Mark Martin from enforcing the 19-page law’s new “crushing” rules on paid and volunteer signature canvassers.

Act 1413 (Senate Bill 821) was passed at the behest of the state’s current duopoly gaming interests, who presumably wanted to foil any future attempts through ballot measures to permit competition. The law was offered officially as a way to fight fraud in the petition process, after a spate of allegations of fraud and forgery in several 2012 measures.

In seeking the precarious balance between the rights of citizens to petition the government and the right of the public to avoid a nuisance, the choice is clear: Petitioning the government is a sacred prerogative. There is a reason the First Amendment to the United States Constitution includes free speech; there is a reason the Washington Constitution guarantees citizens the right to legislate “independent of the Legislature.” The ability to petition the government must remain inviolate.

Yesterday, the Nevada Supreme Court heard oral arguments in People’s Legislature, et al, vs. Miller, a challenge to Nevada’s single-subject rule brought by attorney and activist Kermitt Waters. Waters is also a member of Citizens in Charge Foundation’s board of directors.

Nevada’s state constitution expressly limits legislative statutes to a single subject. Waters’ lawsuit argues that the legislation imposing the single-subject rule on citizen initiatives itself contained numerous subjects in violation of the constitution – and is, therefore, unconstitutional and should be declared null and void.

That would strike down the single-subject rule as applied to citizen initiatives.

James Madison to Washington lawmakers: Please keep your mitts off the state’s petition process.

Some legislators are making yet another attempt to throttle the signature-gathering that lies at the core of Washingtonians’ right to mount initiatives and referendums. House Bill 2552, which cleared the House of Representatives last week, would entangle petitioners in a slew of new restrictions. The clear purpose is to make it harder for citizens to get a measure on the ballot.

Any effort to burden or complicate signature-gathering has constitutional implications. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech and the right “to petition the government for redress of grievances.”

Oregon’s system of initiative and referendum gives voters the power to enact laws themselves when the Legislature cannot or will not, and to overturn laws voters don’t like. Needless to say, lawmakers are not always pleased with this populist process, but most of the time, they let it take its course. This week, though, the House stuck its nose where it doesn’t belong.

At issue is a law the Legislature passed allowing immigrants in the United States illegally to obtain permits to drive in Oregon. We supported the law and still do: The immigrants in question are here, and they’re driving whether anyone likes it or not, so why not encourage them to know the rules of the road and to get insurance?

A bill making its way through the Washington Legislature would change the state law that landed a local light rail petition in court last year.

House Bill 2296, introduced by state Rep. Liz Pike, would allow duplicate signatures on a petition to be counted once, rather than thrown out entirely. The Camas Republican said last year’s ill-fated light rail petition in Vancouver largely inspired her bill, but it’s found support from elsewhere in the legislature.

The bill sailed through a House committee last week. It’s co-sponsored by four Democrats and five Republicans, among them Rep. Paul Harris and Brandon Vick, both of Vancouver.

“I think the merit goes beyond (Vancouver), as well,” Pike said.

With the turn of the New Year, new initiatives will take the stage and petitioners will hit the streets to rally support for their causes. The causes are as varied as they can be and both local and state-wide issues.  With some already submitted and others in the planning stages, initiatives for many hot-button issues will be championed and fought against in 2014.

In Oregon, an initiative attempting to strike down the state’s gay marriage ban:
http://www.pqmonthly.com/two-court-cases-ballot-initiative-one-big-goal/18148

In Oklahoma, two initiatives advocated by a city councilman to prohibit use of sales tax revenue for new buildings:

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.

As soon as the snow melts, Missourians may find themselves confronting a horde of people stopping them outside stores, on the streets or at their front doors.

The object: to get their signatures on petitions that would put a variety of issues – such as early voting, income taxes and teacher tenure – on the August or November ballot.

So far, almost 40 such initiative petitions, covering at least 24 different topics, have been cleared by Secretary of State Jason Kander for circulation. That’s a huge number for a non-presidential election year. In 2010, the last such non-presidential year, 23 initiatives were approved for circulation.

Every major election year, some of the more interesting results come not from contests for elected office, but from ballot initiatives. Even though most states haven’t yet finalized which questions will or will not go to voters in 2014, some states will almost certainly weigh in on a number of high-profile issues.

Here’s a round up of some of the more interesting questions out there right now, and where the efforts to get those questions to voters in 2014 stands:

Read More: here