Citizens in Charge

The following appeared as an op-ed in Monday’s Connecticut Post:

 

Yesterday afternoon the Missouri Senate Elections Committee passed Senate Bill 818 out of committee by a vote of 6 to 1, many weeks ahead of where similar legislation was last session.

This video is getting multiple airs during prime time on St. Louis TV news.  KTVI-TV covers the efforts of a Missouri group to qualify a constitutional amendment for this fall’s ballot.

Nebraska resident Kent Bernbeck has filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s ban on paying campaign workers who circulate petitions by the signature and requirement that petition circulators be over the age of 18.

United States District Court Judge Robert Holmes Bell has made Michigan the ninth state to see a requirement that campaign workers who circulate petitions be residents of the state struck down. In 2008 federal appeals courts struck down residency requirements in Ohio, Arizona and Oklahoma. Residency requirements of some kind have previously been ruled unconstitutional in California, Colorado, Wisconsin, Illinois, and New York.

At Citizens in Charge Foundation we seek to keep the initiative & referendum process open and accessible for those citizens who have it, and expand the process to those citizens who do not. We believe that the initiative & referendum process is a right that every citizen should have, regardless of what issue or policy they intend to use it for.