Category: initiative, referendum, and recall

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initiative, referendum, and recall tax policy

Golden State Voters

California voters are said to be in big trouble. You see, they didn’t vote the way their newspapers and politicians told them to vote on the six ballot measures on the May 19th ballot.

The first five measures — a combination of tax-raising and spending shifts to cover a $21 billion budget hole — were defeated by voters by a whopping two-to-one margin.

Only the sixth proposition passed — and it cuts the salaries of legislators and state officials.

The lessons are obvious, but not likely to be learned by the political elite, who now argue that the ballot initiative process should be restricted if not abolished altogether because the people didn’t vote according to their wishes.

Lesson One: Raising taxes isn’t terribly popular even in a blue state. Voters seem to think legislators should find ways to cut back spending without gutting essential services. In every county, and even in very liberal Los Angeles and San Francisco, these ballot measures went down hard.

Lesson Two: It’s good when politicians have to ask us before raising taxes. While some bemoan that voters aren’t minding their governors, I’m of the school that believes that those who govern are supposed to mind the voters.

Golden state voters are fortunate that politicians had to seek their approval to raise taxes — and smart not to have given it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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initiative, referendum, and recall

Change, Sweeping Down the Plains

Change is funny. Sometimes it seems like change will never come. Then, all of the sudden, it’s here.

For years, I’ve been hoping for some changes in Oklahoma politics. That’s because the state’s voter initiative process was blocked. It’s also because, as regular readers know, the state’s Attorney General Drew Edmondson launched a politically-motivated prosecution against myself and two others, threatening us with prison for working on a petition.

Those ridiculous charges have now been dropped. A friend recently said, “Well, I guess you’re glad not to be thinking about Oklahoma anymore.”

But I am thinking about Oklahoma. Quite fondly.

These days some wonderful Okies are winning important victories. Oklahomans for Responsible Government has made initiative reform one of its top issues. Oklahomans for Initiative Rights is touring the state pulling a giant 10-foot tall, 18-foot long float to draw attention to initiative reform.

Already a constitutional amendment to lower the state’s petition requirement has passed the legislature and is headed to a vote of the people.

And two other bills to improve the initiative have made it through both Houses, through a conference committee and now must be re-approved by both chambers before going to the governor for his signature.

These bills will clean up the process and give the people of Oklahoma more time to gather signatures to put issues on the ballot.

Change is coming — sweeping down the plains.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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initiative, referendum, and recall

A Different Drum

Kent Drum and I step to the beat of different drummers.

At Mother Jones, Mr. Drum decried California’s upcoming May 19th special election, writing, “I loathe the ballot initiative.”

Me? I love the ballot initiative.

Drum is complaining about California’s upcoming vote on Propositions 1A through 1F. For the record, these measures were placed on the ballot by legislators, not initiated by citizens.

Drum is particularly upset that he has to vote on Props 1D and 1E. These two propositions must go to a popular vote because the programs were passed by voters through the initiative process. Legislators want 70 percent of the money voters passed for early childhood development programs and 25 percent of funding for mental health programs to fill their big budget gap. But they can’t snatch those dollars until voters say so.

Says Drum, “I have no idea if [Prop 1E] is a good idea or not, and for a trivial sum like this I’m not about to spend hours poring over ballot arguments.”

The trivial sum to Mr. Drum is $200 million. Who’d get out of bed for a mere $200 million clams, eh?

I would. Of course, I like voting on the actions governments take in our names. I like the idea of citizens being in charge.

I think I’d vote No on every one of these California measures. But I’d like that power: the power to say no.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

The Untold Story of the Oklahoma Three

Receiving an award is a lot nicer than ten years in prison.

As regular listeners know, Rick Carpenter, Susan Johnson, and I were indicted by Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson on trumped-up, politically-motivated charges stemming from a petition drive to cap state government spending.

For almost two years this indictment hung over our heads. In all that time, the AG never even completed our preliminary hearing. Finally, all charges were dropped.

That vindication came in January. The next month, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, I received the Charlton Heston “Courage Under Fire” Award. And just weeks ago, I was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Sam Adams Alliance for my Oklahoma fight as well as decades of work for term limits and citizen initiative rights.

The recognition is nice . . . for my whole family, who suffered alongside me these past two years. But let’s also remember my co-defendants, Rick and Susan.

At one point Edmondson offered Susan Johnson a deal. If she would only plead guilty — saving face for the Attorney General — she would be charged with a misdemeanor, and her record would quickly be expunged.

With her legal bills mounting and her business hammered by the prosecution, she didn’t blink. Instead, she told the AG: “No way.”

Her commitment to doing the right thing led to an important legal victory. She gets my Award for Quiet Courage.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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initiative, referendum, and recall

Are They Out of Session Yet?

While Americans readily share power with their representatives, those representatives tend to resent sharing power with the people who choose them.

Need proof? Take Colorado. Last year, legislators passed a statute to restrict the petition process that Governor Ritter had to veto. Then legislators offered up Referendum O, to make it tougher for citizens to place initiative amendments on the ballot. Voters defeated it.

Now, Colorado legislators — including legislative leaders of both parties — fast-track a new bill to again restrict the initiative process.

In Nevada, the federal courts struck down a requirement that initiative sponsors collect signatures in 13 of 17 counties. Legislators then came back with a new law to force initiative proponents to gather signatures in all 17. That too was struck down. But now legislators propose that petitions must be gathered in all 42 state legislative districts.

In Missouri, Rep. Mike Parson pushes a bill to restrict the petition process. Though Parson admitted in a public hearing that part of his bill is probably unconstitutional, that part remains.

I have an idea. Let’s require that legislators gather a few thousand signatures to gain their own spot on the ballot. And let’s mandate that any restrictions they place on citizens petitioning to put issues on the ballot must also apply to them.

Oh, we might also need to send some of these scheming legislators packing at the next election.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall too much government

No Exaggeration Necessary

Artful exaggeration is a part of good writing. Take this example from Yakima Valley Business Times editor Bruce Smith: “All of us who think we already pay too many taxes should bow west toward Mukilteo at least once a day.”

Smith did not figure he could set up a new religion. He was figuratively conveying the importance to the state of Washington of initiative activist Tim Eyman’s recent, successful measure requiring a two-thirds’ vote of the Legislature to hike taxes.

Smith also went on to talk about Tim Eyman’s newest proposal, which he is petitioning to place on the 2009 ballot. The measure is called I-1033, and officially dubbed the Lower Property Taxes Initiative. But Smith notes a feature of the proposal that stretches it, in a sense, beyond a mere property tax lowering device. “What I like most about the measure is that it reins in government growth,” writes Smith. “It limits the rate of government expansion to that of the overall economy.”

But here Smith doesn’t exaggerate at all. “Currently government grows at a level that is about 50 percent higher than that of the private sector,” he explains.

“[B]ureaucrats and the apologists have all sorts of excuses to rationalize why those levels of growth are necessary, but here’s the bottom line: Unless things change, government will become unsustainable.”

Exactly. No hyperbole.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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initiative, referendum, and recall

Exploring Recall in Wisconsin

You’ve heard of a campaign exploratory committee?

Well, at recalldoyle.com you can see a recall exploratory effort in full bloom. Not a candidate campaign exploration, but an effort to recall a sitting official.

The site is titled the “Doyle Recall Exploratory Portal,” and organizers of the  effort are serious about doing something about Wisconsin’s governor. The core of their argument is at the center of the page:

WHY RECALL DOYLE? Jim Doyle is the de facto CEO of a $30 billion dollar corporation we call the State of Wisconsin that is being rapidly run into the ground. The buck stops at the top. . . .

  • Record Deficits – 4th Largest in the USA
  • Massive Tax Increases Threaten Prosperity
  • Radical Agenda Drives Away Business, Kills Jobs

. . . An unprecedented fiscal crisis demands bold and immediate action to save Wisconsin from certain financial ruin. The longer we wait, the more damage will be done. The clock is ticking!

If you support the idea of citizens taking control, when politicians go out of control, you can’t help but admire the intent here. And I, for one, wish the effort luck.

I confess, I don’t know everything about Governor Doyle. But knowing, as I do, the general run of the political mill, I’d bet money that the folks at Recall Doyle are doing their state a great service.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Veteran Politicians vs. Veterans

Back in 2005 I testified in the Florida legislature against an attempt to weaken the state’s term limits. Ignoring my testimony, legislators put their anti-limits amendment on the ballot. But as the election approached, they got scared. So scared, in fact, that they went so far as to pull their anti-term limits amendment off the ballot.

Now, four years later, there’s a proposed constitutional amendment to extend the state’s property tax discount for disabled veterans to those veterans who live in Florida now, but were not Florida residents when they entered the military. This popular idea is likely to win legislative approval to be on the ballot.

Well, at least, it was likely . . . until Senator Mike Bennett tacked on an amendment. Bennett wants to weaken Florida’s “eight is enough” term limits law by giving legislators twelves years. He sees latching it to the popular veterans’ measure as the best way to do that.

Notice that when Florida citizens propose constitutional amendments they can only address one subject, no pairing a popular issue with an unrelated unpopular one.

House Majority Leader Adam Hasner called the measure “disrespectful to those men and women who have served our country and are disabled veterans.”

It is also disrespectful to the 77 percent of Floridians who voted for eight-year term limits and want to keep them.

Floridians cherish military veterans.

Veteran politicians? Not so much.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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initiative, referendum, and recall

Special Interests of the World Unite

Wish there were an issue that would engender bipartisan co-operation from our legislators? An idea that could bring together special interests of all stripes — from the teachers’ unions to the Chamber of Commerce?

There is: Taking away your initiative rights.

Last week, I was at the Missouri capitol testifying against several bills that would create restrictions for initiative petitions, many identical to those struck down all across the country as unconstitutional violations of the First Amendment.

Show-Me state legislators also came up with something new: A bill to actually prohibit citizens from gathering signatures on more than one petition at a time.

Very convenient. It just so happens that a campaign to stop the state’s rampant eminent domain abuse requires two constitutional changes, thus two petitions.

As a representative for the state’s League of Women Voters put it, they just want to place a few more hurdles in the way of the people. She was joined by many other big capitol lobbies, united by their desire to block the citizens from playing any role in policy.

Fortunately, a number of regular folks, representatives from several grassroots groups, as well as the state’s ACLU attended, urging their representatives to do the unusual — actually represent the people.

Special interests hate the voter initiative process. They know what we know: If there is to be reform, it has to come from the people directly.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall tax policy

They Call It “De-Brucing”

Colorado’s constitutional amendment dubbed the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, has made it difficult for politicians to tax and spend like they want.

So politicians engage in all sorts of weird strategems.

Take “de-Brucing.” TABOR’s author is Doug Bruce. TABOR allows voters to make exceptions to the law’s basic limits on spending increases and taxes. So all but four of Colorado’s 178 school districts have voted to “de-Bruce” — that is, to allow more spending, more taxes, than TABOR’s formula would otherwise allow.

In this context, Gov. Bill Ritter worked hard promoting a 2007 law to freeze tax rates. This freeze was designed not to limit increasing tax revenues, but to shore up the pre-TABOR rate of increase. It passed.

What the freeze did was de-Bruce the whole state, even those four school districts that had repeatedly and enthusiastically upheld tax rate reductions created by TABOR.

And now the state supreme court has decided that Ritter’s legal maneuver is just hunky dory.

In Colorado, voters engage in lawful constitutional revisions, and politicians react with obvious unconstitutional law . . . and are backed up by the highest court. So much for constitutionality.

If I lived in Colorado, I’d be voting not to “de-Bruce,” but to “de-Ritter” . . . and be thinking about term limits for judges.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.