Category: initiative, referendum, and recall

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initiative, referendum, and recall

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?

Remember Scooby-Doo? Debuting in 1969, the plot to every one of the cartoons is the same: Bad guy pretends to be a ghost or monster to steal something. Then he gets caught by the title Great Dane and teenagers Shaggy, Velma, Fred and Daphne. The crook then cries out, “I would’ve got away with it, if it wasn’t for those pesky kids!”

When it comes to politicians and their scary schemes, Texas voters perform the same service as “those pesky kids.”

Last year, Austin citizens voted on a measure that would have stopped the city from giving away millions in subsidies to the Domain shopping center. It failed, though, after a big campaign by city officials arguing the deal was already done and, if altered, taxpayers would be liable for millions of dollars in legal fees.

In Dallas, a measure on this May’s ballot would prohibit the city from owning a convention center. Now a group called Dallas Right to Vote has collected enough signatures to place another measure before voters allowing a public vote on any city giveaway of $1 million or more.

Even Scoob could figure the bad guys’ next move. State Sen. Jeff Wentworth has introduced Senate Bill 690 to double the number of signatures citizens must gather to put these local initiatives on the ballot.

Call Senator Wentworth at (512) 463-0125. Tell him you support those pesky kids — er, voters.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Quinn Is In

Blagojevich is out! Quinn is in! There is gubernatorial hope for corruption-riddled Illinois.

Now, admittedly, I don’t agree with Governor Pat Quinn on every issue. But few governors can boast Quinn’s long record as an anti-establishmentarian reformer.

In April of last year, Pat Quinn, then Illinois’s lieutenant governor, was pushing hard for a ballot measure to give voters the power to recall elected officials. This was after the sitting governor, Blago, got in hot water for various corruption, but long before he was caught scheming to sell president-elect Obama’s vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder.

Certainly, the first target of a new recall power would have been Blagojevich. The bill passed the Illinois house but unfortunately failed in the senate.

Of course, Quinn’s track record goes way beyond the political battles of 2008. In addition to being pro-recall, he is also pro-initiative rights and pro-term limits. In 1994, Quinn did the heavy lifting to put a term limits measure on the ballot. It would have capped state legislative tenure at eight years had not the Illinois Supreme Court outrageously removed the ballot measure, blocking the vote.

Quinn is in. Illinois reformers should beat a path to his door and urge him to push for these necessary changes harder than ever.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall national politics & policies

Santelli’s Stimulus Referendum & Tea Party

CNBC’s Rick Santelli struck one awfully big nerve last week. Reporting from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Santelli said things you don’t hear much on TV, from politicians or from talking heads.

Santelli said that “the government is promoting bad behavior” with all the bailouts.

He railed against Obama’s new mortgage bailout plan, asking workers at the Exchange, “How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage, that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills?” None answered in the affirmative.

Santelli mocked the recently passed stimulus plan for providing people with “a whopping $8 or $10” and then banking on the notion that citizens won’t save the money, but rush out to spend it.

And he ridiculed “the multiplier that all of these Washington economists are selling us.” Using their logic, Santelli sarcastically concluded, “We never have to worry about the economy again. The government should spend a trillion dollars an hour because we’ll get $1.5 trillion back.”

Most working people understand that “you can’t buy your way into prosperity.”

That’s what I liked best about Rick’s rant. He knows the American people are smarter than the politicians.

I like it that he called for a national, online referendum over the bailouts. The government won’t provide it, but I will. Go to CitizensinCharge.org to cast your ballot.

Santelli also called for a Chicago Tea Party. See you there.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

The Year of Reform?

This year has brought good news for freedom and democracy in Oklahoma.

Last month, the state’s attorney general, Drew Edmondson, dropped his appeal of a federal court decision, which had overturned part of Oklahoma’s petition law. The AG also dismissed all charges against the Oklahoma Three — Rick Carpenter, Susan Johnson and me.

Hopefully, with the end of this politically motivated prosecution, the chilling effect it has had on Oklahomans who want to petition government will quickly dissipate.

But still, as State Senator Randy Brogdon points out, Oklahoma’s petition process remains “the most onerous . . . in the nation.” That’s the bad news.

The good news? Senator Brogdon and State Representative Randy Terrill aim to change all that. They’ve introduced legislation to “tear down many of the roadblocks that currently prevent the people from exercising their First Amendment rights.”

There’s a constitutional amendment to lower the signature requirements on petitions, now the highest percentage in the nation. A separate statute would give citizens a year to collect signatures, rather than the short 90-day window currently required. That statute would also clean up the process to prevent petitions from being thrown out arbitrarily.

Only three out of 24 initiative petitions this decade have made the Sooner State’s ballot. “Perhaps relief is on the way,” wrote The Oklahoman newspaper. Brogdon says, “2009 could be the year for reform.”

Now is exactly the right time.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Citizen Government in Gloucester

What does Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, have in common with Gloucester County, Virginia?

Politicians and judges who try their mightiest to keep citizens from influencing government.

In Wilkes-Barre, a judge ruled that Denise Carey would have to pay the court costs for the money spent by the city to trounce her attempt to put a local issue to a vote.

In Gloucester, a group of citizens got angry at four newly elected members of the county’s Board of Supervisors. The four had participated in a closed meeting. So some folks worked to get a Grand Jury, which indicted the supervisors, and then they petitioned to recall them.

The judge who got the case was neither respectful nor amused. He threw out the indictments — and, citing a minor technicality, the petitions too.

He then ruled that the citizen activist group owed $80,000, to cover a majority of the supervisors’ legal bills.

As I told you a few weeks ago, the Wilkes-Barre case had a good ending, with higher courts reversing the judge’s decision.

In Gloucester County, the ACLU is coming to the aid of the group, and the state legislature is considering a law preventing judges in future cases from punishing citizens exercising their rights.

Great — but wouldn’t it be better if politicians and judges respected citizen rights in the first place?

That would be Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Amendment 2 . . . In Plain English

NOTE: This is a revised, updated episode, as played on radio stations.
The original episode can be found here

On January 22, two separate issues appeared on the ballot in Nashville, Tennessee. But voters may not have known that. Seems some folks didn’t want them to know.

You see, Amendment 1, called “English-Only,” stirred up lots of controversy. That initiative read, in part: “all official government communications and publications shall be in English.”

A group called Nashville for All of Us raised $300,000 and, along with the mayor and the governor, campaigned against it. In the course of their campaign, every advertisement urged a vote against both Amendment 1 AND Amendment 2.

Yet, strangely, there was absolutely no mention in their ads or on their website as to what Amendment 2 was about.

Well, in plain English, Amendment 2 had nothing to do with English-Only. Amendment 2 was called Hear the People, and sought to protect the people’s initiative rights. Unfortunately, it went down to defeat along with English-Only.

That’s too bad, because Amendment 2 would have made it easier to put issues on general election ballots rather than on costly special elections, like this one. Amendment 2 would have lowered the number of signatures needed to place an issue on the ballot. And it would have prevented the Metro Council from amending or repealing measures passed by voters . . . at least for four years.

No wonder some folks didn’t want the voters to know about Amendment 2.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Discord Over Spending in Concord

I’ve read the proposed amendment to the Concord, New Hampshire, city charter and read it again. It looks like a fine, responsible attempt to limit government growth.

But Paul Cavanaugh, Concord’s city solicitor, has quite a different view. While three state agencies have given the proposed amendment their go-ahead, he filed an appeal, arguing that the amendment’s spending cap would interfere with the city’s ability to pay for legally required welfare and public safety services.

On first blush, it seems he may have something. If you limit government growth with a charter amendment, and the state still requires you to pay out certain services, and there’s an influx of people who ask for such services . . . what do you do?

Well, you could develop a rainy day fund for just those services, to cover unexpected demands. Or, perhaps, prioritize spending just a tad. Stop spending so much on discretionary items so you have the funds to fulfill your constitutional duties.

Yet the first thing that came to mind for Cavanaugh and Concord’s politicians was to block the citizens from voting on the spending limit. Force it off the ballot.

Politicians! They will do anything, it seems, rather than spend wisely.

It’s sad, really. Politicians hate saving. They hate not spending. Most of all, they hate citizens control of their prodigal ways.

That’s why it is citizens who should decide, directly.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Citizen Rights Emergency

It’s an emergency! You may not be able to finish this two-minute commentary before the Marines bust through the door to save us. Or, it could be the Coast Guard. Or the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Well, not FEMA. But this is a big deal . . . at least in Maine’s state legislature. What’s the giant emergency, you ask? Are you sitting down? Citizens in Maine just might petition to place an issue on the ballot through the state’s initiative process or use their people’s veto to refer a bill passed by the legislature to a vote.

You see the problem, don’t you? Then people would decide. Not the politicians.

Last year, a group called Fed Up With Taxes put the so-called Dirigo Drink Tax to a vote of the people. In November, Mainers voted to repeal the legislature’s tax.

Some politicians don’t much like uppity voters having government their way. So they want to declare an emergency.

Running to rescue unresponsive government is Representative Mark Bryant, who introduced an emergency bill to require all people who gather petitions to be registered to vote.

There are two problems with Bryant’s bill.

First, it is unconstitutional: Years ago the U.S. Supreme Court ruled such requirements made no sense — except as a way to unfairly block petitions.

Second, shredding the Constitution doesn’t qualify as an emergency.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights initiative, referendum, and recall national politics & policies

The Oklahoma Three, Free at Last

It seemed hardly necessary. The handcuffs and leg-irons, I mean. I wasn’t a threat to anybody. Neither were Rick Carpenter and Susan Johnson.

We had been charged with “conspiracy to defraud the state of Oklahoma” for our work to put a spending cap on the ballot.

The metal constraints were for show — to intimidate us and to scare the good citizens of Oklahoma.

The threatened penalty of ten years in prison was scary, too.

Being innocent, we defended our rights, even as the persecution dragged on for a year and half. Not even a preliminary hearing had been completed. Folks wondered if Attorney General Drew Edmondson was more interested in tying us up politically than in prosecuting us legally.

We never got our day in court; the Constitution intervened. Not only did we not break Oklahoma’s residency law, the federal Tenth Circuit declared the law itself an unconstitutional violation of our First Amendment rights.

So, on January 22nd, the AG dismissed the charges. It was a great day — for all of us.

But the underlying mindset of the original law and prosecution remains. Legislators continue to enact unconstitutional impediments against citizen use of ballot initiatives and recall petitions. Too often, officials seek to punish citizens who assert their rights.

Citizens in chains cannot control their government. That’s why, working with the group Citizens in Charge Foundation, I’ll keep fighting.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Amendment 2 . . . In Plain English

Today in Nashville, Tennessee, two issues are on the ballot. But voters may not  know what they are. Some people don’t want them to know.

You see, Amendment 1, a measure called “English-Only,” has stirred up lots of controversy. The initiative reads: “Official actions which bind or commit the government shall be taken only in the English language, and all official government communications and publications shall be in English.”

A group called Nashville for All of Us has raised $300,000 and has campaigned against it. In the course of their campaign, every ad urges a vote against both Amendment 1 and Amendment 2.

Yet, strangely, there is absolutely no mention in their ads or on their website as to what Amendment 2 is about — just constant exhortations to vote against it.

Well, in plain English, Amendment 2 has nothing to do with English-Only. It’s about Nashville voters protecting their initiative rights. Amendment 2 makes it easier to put ballot measures on the general election when the most people come out to vote, rather than on special elections that needlessly cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

Amendment 2 would also standardize and lower the petition requirement to place an issue on the ballot. And Amendment 2 would prevent the Metro Council from amending or repealing measures passed by voters . . . at least for four years.

No wonder some folks don’t want to discuss Amendment 2.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.