Something totally unexpected — by me, at least — happened earlier this month in North Dakota. It concerned a citizen initiative to term-limit the Peace Garden State’s governor and state legislators.
Not unexpected, however, how often term limits measures meet resistance from long-serving politicians, judges, and officials.
Al Jaeger has been the Secretary of State in North Dakota for the last 30 years. This is Mr. Jaeger’s final term; at age 79, he’s not seeking re-election.
Back in February, Jared Hendrix and the North Dakota Term Limits committee submitted over 46,000 voter signatures on petitions to Jaeger’s office, enough to far surpass the 31,164 requirement to earn a spot on this November’s ballot.
Yet, in March, Secretary Jaeger ruled that the petition fell far short of the requirement, throwing out over 15,000 otherwise valid signatures because the petitions were notarized by someone he “suspected” of fraud. Before making this public announcement, however, Jaeger had brought proponent Hendrix into his office and, along with the state’s attorney general, threatened criminal prosecutions unless he withdrew the petition.
Hendrix refused to cave. And with help from U.S. Term Limits, the North Dakota group challenged the secretary’s denial. Still, when a lower court judge agreed that Jaeger, with all his experience, could make such sweeping judgments to disqualify petitions, I feared the fix was in.
But earlier this month, the surprise: the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled, unanimously, that Jaeger had misapplied the law and ordered the amendment placed on the ballot as Measure 1.
Yes. Misapplied. Deliberately?
Thankfully, the term limits amendment includes a provision to prevent itself, if passed, from being overturned except by another citizen initiative.
We know how eager establishment politicians are to kill term limits by hook or by crook, mostly crook.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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4 replies on “The Fix Wasn’t In”
Despite this victory, is it possible another party can argue that the clause requiring another initiative to overturn term limits is itself unconstitutional? I can see them arguing that it prevents the people’s elected representatives from exercising power granted to them by the state constitution. If at all possible, establishment pols will find a way to get rid of it.
They’ll hate it, but attorneys think it is absolutely solid.
Still, you are wise to the pols and cronies, because that is exactly what they argued in a lawsuit over Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights (or TABOR), which requires votes of the people to raise taxes and/or spending. I wrote about it here.
Townhall: Their Right to Your Money (Mar 23, 2014)
https://townhall.com/columnists/pauljacob/2014/03/23/their-right-to-your-money-n1813221
I’d like to see a law requiring public officials to get a tattoo of Tom Foley on their biceps before they can attempt to overturn term limits.
Bravo! Might have to check its constitutionality, but what a sublime suggestion.