Category: initiative, referendum, and recall

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ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall litigation partisanship

Maddened in Michigan

Michigan, petition, initiative, deadlock, democracy, voting

“It’s not every day that Michigan’s bureaucracy violates state and federal law while disenfranchising more than 700,000 Michigan voters,” opens the legal brief filed in the Michigan Supreme Court last Thursday by Americans for Citizen Voting – Michigan. “But that’s exactly what happened [last] week.”

The group (which I chair) has worked for the last year to place the Citizen Only Voting Amendment on Michigan’s November ballot. It makes two basic reforms: requires the Secretary of State to check the voter rolls, identifying and removing noncitizens in a fair process, and requires photo identification to cast a ballot.

Last week, the Board of State Canvassers, two appointed Democrats and two appointed Republicans, deadlocked repeatedly, 2-2, on counting petition signatures even when they agreed that the signer was a registered Michigan voter, and then, on whether to certify the issue for the ballot. 

“The initiative’s sample was left just three signatures short of certification for the ballot,” Sen. Ruth Johnson explained in The Detroit News, “after Democrats on the board refused to count the signatures of nine Michigan voters whose identities had been verified by a notary public, and who signed affidavits under penalty of perjury that the signatures on the petitions in question were theirs.”

“These are real affidavits from real people who are real voters who signed these petitions,” Republican Board Chair Richard Housekamp implored his two Democratic colleagues. 

“The signature matches,” acknowledged Democratic Vice-Chair Mary Ellen Gurewitz, “but whether it should be counted . . . um . . . I think we should decide later.”

“So, you’re going to hold the voter hostage is what I hear you saying,” Housekamp replied.

“You should not have to stop to check the count,” wrote Johnson, a former Secretary of State, “before giving credit for a signature you have already acknowledged is valid. . . .

“Two unelected members of an obscure state board,” she concluded, “cannot be allowed to strip away the constitutional rights of nearly one in 10 adults in our state who signed a petition to place this issue before voters.”

That’s why we and the 700,000 Michiganders who signed our petition want our day in court. Left without any response at all from Michigan’s Democrat-dominated Supreme Court, on Monday we filed an emergency petition with the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Yesterday, Justice Brett Kavanaugh ordered the Michigan Secretary of State, Bureau of Elections and Board of State Canvassers to respond to our appeal by noon today. Our day is coming.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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initiative, referendum, and recall

Official Ballot Lies

initiative, voting, elections, democracy

With Republicans controlling most state legislatures, legislative assaults against the citizen initiative petition process tend to come disproportionally from Republicans. Just last week, Missouri voters smashed a legislative initiative petition “reform” on the primary ballot with greater than 80 percent voting NO.

In Democratic controlled states, however, attempts to thwart democracy bear Democrats’ fingerprints. A Wall Street Journal editorial recounts cases in California, Colorado and Washington where citizen petitions have been or are being deep-sixed on dubious legal grounds.

“In 2023 California Gov. Gavin Newsom sued to block a citizen initiative that sought to require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature and vote of the people for major fee and tax increases such as the cap-and-tax program,” the paper explains. Let’s vote! 

But the California Supreme Court labeled the measure a “constitutional revision” preventing a vote of the people.

Colorado Democrats have been hiking fees, rather than taxes, because their constitution requires a public vote to raise taxes. Citizens petitioned a measure onto this November’s ballot to more clearly define fees and require a vote to hike them. 

Colorado’s all-Democrat appointed Supreme Court blocked a vote, arguing there was “a danger of log rolling because it may attract a ‘yes’ vote from voters who support statewide voter approval of fees, but who would not support narrowing the definition of existing and new fees under Colorado law.”

In Washington state, Democrats passed a 9.9% tax on income above $1 million. Then, voters “launched a ballot campaign to repeal the tax and bar the state and localities from enacting income taxes in the future,” The Journal reports. “The initiative qualified for the November ballot [last] month.”

Now, through a new law passed by the Democrats, the attorney general is required to place this specific language on the ballot after a short summary of the proposal: “This measure would decrease funding for public K-12 education, higher education (including universities and community colleges), and human services (primarily healthcare).”

Yet, the ballot measure would repeal a tax that hasn’t yet begun collecting money — no cuts would ensue. Moreover, even if spending reductions had been required, the legislature would be free to make cuts in other programs and not these three areas. 

So, the mandated language put to voters on their ballot? A lie. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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initiative, referendum, and recall

Put It Out of Their Missouri

Missouri, Amendment 4, citizens initiative

Is there no good idea a politician cannot spoil?

Take what’s on next Tuesday’s Missouri ballot. “Amendment 4 was my idea, but I am voting against it,” Ron Calzone wrote on Monday in The Missouri Times.

Mr. Calzone had advanced what is called a Concurrent Majority Ratification process. It was introduced into the legislature by Representative Bill Kidd as HJR 132 in 2022. And then politicians started revising.

Everyone agreed, says Calzone, that Missouri’s constitution “was too easy to amend,” considering “the fact that 50% + 1 of the vote can come from just the urban areas” and thereby inflict upon less-populated rural regions a “Tyranny of the Majority.”

The original notion was “to require a broad consensus before imposing laws on the People.” Before the state constitution could be changed, a majority of voters in a majority of legislative districts would have to concur.

The current Amendment 4, however, though promoted as a solution, really adds three humongous problems:

  1. The amendment applies only to citizen-initiated constitutional revisions — not legislative ones.This is the double standard regarding initiative processes we’ve seen legislatures try over and over again, across the country. Politicians like carving for themselves all sorts of advantages.*
  2. The current measure would require approval of measures in all, not just a majority, of the state’s eight congressional districts. Almost impossible to achieve, it would reinforce a status quo, certainly not rein current powers in.
  3. It shifts the power to alter the constitution from the people to the legislature.

One could write whole histories of how politicians can screw up a good reform. Amendment 4 is now no reform at all.

Doesn’t deserve the name.

Thankfully, Missourians can kill it. On Tuesday.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Legislators complain there have been too many amendments but as Calzone points out: “The fact is, over 80% of the amendments to the Missouri Constitution since 1910 were proposed by the legislature.” 

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First Amendment rights initiative, referendum, and recall

Freedom of Organizational Speech

free speech, censorship, Citizens United, press freedom, corporations

Is it okay to speak freely when you’re just one person but wrong when you’re organizationally cooperating with others?

The latter speech is the target of a Center for American Progress “Plan to Beat Citizens United” launched in 2025.

The hope is to stomp our freedom of speech when we speak as members of incorporated entities — unless the corporation is a news media company. Think tanks, trade groups, and others would be prohibited from using funds to engage in election or ballot-issue activity. They would enjoy little scope to discuss issues or legislation “that may be associated with candidates or ballot measure campaigns.”

Sounding the alarm is People United for Privacy, which reports that CAP’s proposal is being promulgated in 15 states. One state, Hawaii, has already enacted a CAP law. It is being challenged in court.

People United for Privacy has successfully challenged a CAP ballot question in Colorado; officials decided that the measure violated a single-subject requirement.

The bumped ballot title: “Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado Constitution removing the power of artificial persons to spend money or anything of value to influence the outcome of an election, and, in connection therewith, defining ‘artificial person’ as an entity, including a corporation, whose existence is conferred by Colorado law or that otherwise transacts business . . . in Colorado. . . ?”

The troublemaking phrase “artificial person” simply refers to a legally constituted organization formed by real people with a real right to freedom of speech.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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election law initiative, referendum, and recall

Democracy, Democrats & the Constitution 

Virginia, democracy, constitution, gerrymandering

Do senior Democrats not understand how our government is designed?

“Today the Supreme Court of Virginia has chosen to put politics over the rule of law by issuing a ruling that overturns the April 21st special election on redistricting,” Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones said last week.

“What Jones didn’t say in his statement,” explained a Washington Post editorial, “is that he is the one who insisted the court wait until after the election to judge the merits of the challenge, over the objections of those who sued.”

“If the Virginia Supreme Court had legitimate concerns about this referendum, the time to stop it would have been before three million Virginians cast their ballots,” U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.) declared. “But the Court let the process move forward, and Virginians sent a message loud and clear. . . .”

Come now, Senator, courts act only when a case comes before them that is ripe for adjudication. In my experience, courts rarely rule on the constitutionality of a ballot measure until after voters pass it. 

Moreover, under our system, when something violates the constitution it matters not at all whether it passed with 99.9 percent support or the slightest majority. For the record, the redistricting referendum passed “loud and clear” with 51.7 percent of the vote. That was after national Democratic groups splurged $64 million to drown out opponents. And with an “intentionally misleading” ballot title officially informing voters it would “restore fairness.”

Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries also entered the fray, arguing that the “decision to overturn an entire election is an unprecedented and undemocratic action that cannot stand.”

Hard to be wrong that many times in such a short sentence. The ruling will stand and is not “unprecedented”: it did what courts have always done. 

Moreover, the democratic vote on the referendum was set aside by the constraints of Virginia’s democratically enacted constitution.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Previously:

Un-Redistricting Virginia / April 23, 2026
(On a constitutional monkey wrench thrown into the Democratic Party’s latest scheme to out-trump Trump.)

Against Fairness? / April 2, 2026
(On a dishonest ballot title being foisted on Virginia voters.)

Immoderate Bullets / Oct. 6, 2025
(On the man who should most definitely not be attorney general.)

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initiative, referendum, and recall tax policy too much government

The New Property-Tax Revolts

property taxes, protest, revolt, taxes

Decades after a famous revolt by California homeowners led to the relief provided by Proposition 13, taxpayers acting to resist sky-high property taxes are making waves throughout the country.

Just a few of the many examples reported by The Epoch Times:

Ohio. The elderly couple who paid off the mortgage on their home long ago but cannot now afford the property taxes is one reason that people are signing a statewide petition to eliminate local property taxes. It will take about 413,000 signatures, collected by a July 1, 2026 deadline, for the measure to reach the November ballot.

Florida and Texas. Legislators in Florida and Texas hope to limit the “flexibility” that local governments enjoy in how they raise revenue.

Minnesota and North Dakota. Lawmakers are pushing a cap on property tax increases tied to inflation and population growth. Voters would have to agree to any change in the cap. Recent school-board driven increases of 8 or 9 percent would be limited to 3 or 4 percent in typical scenarios.

Montana. Lawmakers want a two-percent limit on tax hikes for “local government spending but not for schools, which consume about 55 percent of property tax revenues.” A fatal flaw? Public schools are better at bloating costs than improving education.

The author observes that 46 states and D.C. already impose some sort oflimits on local property tax increases — though “their designs and restrictiveness differ widely,” adds the Tax Foundation.

Let’s improve those designs and increase the restrictiveness ASAP.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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initiative, referendum, and recall partisanship

Gerrymandered Hypocrisy 

Virginia, referendum, fairness, voting, democracy

“Gerrymandering is detrimental to our democracy,” declared Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger . . . back in 2019.

“Let voters decide, not politicians,” former President Barack Obama offered just last month. 

The problem? They’re correct!

And Republicans are now sharing the statements by these two high-ranking Democrats with Virginia voters. Why? They oppose the April 21 constitutional referendum that, if passed, would allow the legislature to gerrymander the state’s congressional district lines to likely turn the federal delegation from its current six- to five-seat Democratic majority into a ten to one Democratic majority.

How dare opponents repeat the precise words previously uttered by Spanberger and Obama as Virginians go to the polls!

WUSA-TV in Washington, D.C., headlined its report: “Anti-redistricting mailers in Virginia are misleading, critics warn.”

“This has been misconstrued,” explained Gaylene Kanoyton, the Political Action Chair for the Virginia NAACP. “This does not pertain to these unusual, unprecedented times that we are in right now.”

“It is true they made these statements years ago,” a fellow from my hometown was quoted, “but the situation has changed.”

“They don’t like it because we’re exposing their leaders for their hypocrisy,” argues former Republican Delegate A.C. Cordoza with Justice for Democracy PAC. 

Democrats can of course blame Republican gerrymandering efforts in other states to justify their own, but it is a race to the bottom for voters. 

But, as I pointed out last week, Democrats deserve all the blame. The language on the ballot is completely slanted, telling voters the measure will “restore fairness.” This is so outrageous that even the liberal Washington Post editorialized last month that “Democratic politicians are presenting the proposed amendment to voters in the most brazenly dishonest way imaginable.”

Partisans will always be self-serving. But can’t they even try not to appear blatantly hypocritical?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Against Fairness?

Virginia, voting, districts, democracy, language, fairness

I’m against fairness?

Nah, it’s just Democrats who think that, because I won’t vote for their proposed constitutional amendment allowing the legislature to redraw my state’s congressional districts. 

The official question on the April 21 ballot reads: “Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?”

What, exactly, is “fair” about this amendment? 

“If approved, Virginia’s 11 districts would likely go from six Democratic to five Republican leaning seats to 10 Democratic seats and one Republican seat,” explains WJLA, ABC’s Washington, D.C., affiliate. “The new map would draw heavily blue urban areas in Northern Virginia, with rural Republican areas far away.”

Democrat House Speaker Don Scott argues that “levels the playing field.” 

Well, it would be a fairer map if the commonwealth’s electorate were comprised of 90 percent Democrats and less than 10 percent Republican voters. Yet, in 2024, Democrat Kamala Harris garnered just 51 percent of Virginia’s vote for president. Even in last year’s blowout gubernatorial election, Democrat Abigail Spanberger won only 58 percent. During that campaign, Spanberger expressed skepticism of this district map . . . but then, as governor, signed on. 

Democrats, always selective in applying “fairness,” are outspending Republicans “by about 14 to 1 on advertising” and holding the vote for this constitutional question early, in April, with low voter turnout expected — for the first time in state history.

In the minds of Democrats, this maneuver is fair because President Trump has urged Republican states to engage is such partisan redistricting. That’s their case.

But arguments in favor of a measure do not belong in the wording voters see on their ballot as they make their decision. 

That’s unfair.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

Note: In the quoted ballot question, emphasis added.

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initiative, referendum, and recall international affairs

Alberta Shrugs?

Alberta, Canada, Ottowa, secession, nationalism

Political dysfunction is not limited to the United States of America. 

Take Canada. Things have gotten bad enough there that one province is taking measures to “dissolve the political bands which have connected them” with the folks running everything from Ottawa.

“While Canada’s new prime minister jets off to Davos to click glasses with his fellow globalists over at the World Economic Forum,” Dr. Steve Turley explained a few months ago, “back home, tens of thousands of Albertans are lining up in the freezing cold for a chance to vote their province out of the country. The length of the lines are astonishing. Thousands are showing up at high school gyms and community centers all across Alberta with one message: ‘We’re done; we’re leaving.”

Yesterday, this new Alberta First-like movement achieved a new milestone — or so says a “leading figure in the Alberta separatist movement,” according to Matthew Black of the Edmonton Journal.

The claim is that “separatist canvassers” have exceeded “the required 177,732 signatures and expect to far surpass that number before the May 2 deadline.”

Alberta’s secession is going to the ballot. 

Will the voters choose yes?

Secession is a messy, difficult business. But it’s easier in Canada than in, say, the United States (where it led to war). So we will see how the people of the province really feel about how horrific the government in Ottawa really is.

Just remember, this is not out of the blue or crazy or unthinkable even in the U.S. The more dysfunctional federal — “central” — governments get, the more they risk being abandoned by political entities “below” them.

You might think this would incentivize politicians to listen to constituents in the hinterlands, but . . .

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Alberta, Canada, Ottowa, secession, nationalism

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election law initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders

Obscenely Unacceptable

voter ID

“F*ck this sh*t.”

That’s how the erudite opponents of Michigan’s Citizen Only Voting Amendment responded to supporters submitting a petition with more than 750,000 voter signatures to place the measure on the November ballot. 

Sans the asterisks, actually, which I supplied.  

Back in 2022, these oppositionists, fraudulently calling themselves Voters Not Politicians (VNP), helped politicians weaken Michigan’s voter-enacted term limits. 

Now they’re fighting an initiative that I’m promoting, which would: (1) clarify that only U.S. citizens are eligible voters at the state and local level, (2) mandate that the Secretary of State check the voter rolls to ensure it contains only citizens, and (3) require photo ID to vote.

VNP argues this measure is “voter suppression,” after actively urging their liberal activists to “disrupt circulation” of our petition in order to suppress a vote on it. “If this campaign gets enough signatures to get their proposal on the ballot,” VNP acknowledged, “it’s likely to pass.”

Why might voters support the amendment? 

“In Michigan, there have been incidents where non-citizens have not only been allowed to register but then were able to cast ballots,” explained a recent Detroit News editorial. “While the number of incidents is few, that the loophole exists at all is unacceptable.”

At a capitol news conference before delivering 199 boxes of petitions, Sen. Ruth Johnson, a former two-term Secretary of State, told reporters, “You need ID to get a library card to check out a book. You need ID to get a fishing license. And you should have an ID to vote.”

“Only citizens of the United States should be voting in our elections,” offered Rep. Ann Bollin, a former local election clerk. “It is not rocket science. It is common sense.”

This is [expletive deleted] Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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