Category: initiative, referendum, and recall

Categories
ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall

An App for That

We’ve had debit cards for most of my adult life. Regularly, people sign their names on electronic pads to obtain medication, credit, what-​have-​you. You can order books and music and nearly anything online, from your computer, your smartphone, or your new iPad.

It’s high time to take democracy into this new era.

At least, Michael Ni thinks so. And I agree.

Last year, Mr. Ni brought a signed ballot initiative to the clerk’s office in San Mateo County. He did not use anything so archaic as ink. Or a pencil. He signed the document using the screen of his iPhone, and he delivered it to the designated agent via flash drive.

It was rejected.

And so began a lawsuit, Ni v. Slocum, to upgrade the State of California’s initiative process. Mr. Ni runs Verafirma, a company that has produced technology that, you might say, puts another “i” (or is that the “e”?) in “initiative.” The technology works on the iPhone, the iPod Touch, and the Verizon Droid, and is slated for other smartphones and similar post-​PC devices.

Mr. Warren Slocum, named defendant/​respondent, admits that the technology “is transformative.”

Recently, Twitter and Facebook have helped foment and organize revolutions. But the statewide citizens initiative, a bulwark of democracy in half the states, is lagging behind, technologically. 

It’s time for government to accommodate the habits and desires and sheer convenience of the masses.

It’s time to say, “Democracy: There’s an app for that.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture initiative, referendum, and recall

Keeping Up with the Arabs

It’s open season on Middle East dictators — but I’m a little jealous. Greater freedom and democracy may be coming to Tunisia and Egypt and Bahrain, but what about us?

The last two decades Americans have asserted themselves, changing control of Congress several times as well as passing term limits and other reforms directly through numerous statewide citizen initiatives.

Have our elected representatives responded by facilitating such democratic participation? Not on your life!

This year, many state legislators came into session hell-​bent on blocking the citizen check of initiative and referendum. 

In Colorado, legislators have proposed a constitutional amendment making it harder to place initiatives on the ballot. It would also mandate a 60 percent supermajority vote to pass a constitutional amendment, allowing deep pocket special interests the power to defeat reforms popular enough to win 59.9 percent of the vote.

Last November, Oklahoma voters passed a constitutional amendment to make it a little easier for citizens to petition an issue onto the ballot. Now, just months later, state senators narrowly passed an amendment that would make the same process much more difficult.

Currently, Nevada citizens must gather signatures in each of the state’s three congressional districts to qualify a statewide ballot issue. Legislation is pending to increase this requirement from three petition drives to 42 separate petition drives — one for each of the 42 state legislative districts.

Thus our “representatives” seek to stop the people from representing themselves.

This is Common sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

A Fraudulent Anti-​Fraud Bill

The theory behind Washington State’s Senate Bill 5297 — now worming its way through Olympia — seems to be that the people can’t be trusted to legislate, so the more hurdles thrown up at the initiative process, the better.

But the bill itself shows just the opposite, revealing its legislative supporters as careless, heedless of facts, and nastily bigoted towards some folk and against others. 

The truth? Washington State has had only one known case of signature fraud. A Service Employees International Union official repeatedly just made up names and signatures.

She’s confessed and awaits sentencing. 

So why add SB 5297’s reporting requirements for signature gatherers? To stop frauds such as this?

Well, no. SB 5297 exempts union petitioners!

Par for the course. Politicians in not a few of the 24 states that have statewide initiative rights try such things, all the while talking about the evils of fraud.

The facts? After surveying public records, Citizens in Charge Foundation reported, last year in “Is the ‘F‑word’ Overused?”, that “cases of verified fraud or forgery are not pervasive in initiative or referendum petitions. Furthermore, many of the ‘reforms’ passed by state legislatures to address fraud have shown no positive results.”

Fortunately for Washingtonians, initiative activist Tim Eyman has bashed the bill and nearly every state newspaper, usually editorializing against Eyman, has instead lambasted the legislation. Citizens are rallying. Several legislators have stood against it, and taken away much of its teeth and claws. 

Now it’s time to kill the beast.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability folly initiative, referendum, and recall

A Modest Proposal for Madison

“Ninety percent of life is just showing up.”

Well, Woody, tell that to Democratic state senators in Wisconsin. Or, should I say, in Rockford, Illinois … hiding from the Wisconsin police.

They’re not wanted for any crime. Wisconsin state troopers would simply take them into custody and deliver them to their worksite: the state capitol in Madison.

Unemployment soars, and folks with cushy jobs go underground. I hate to be so boringly practical, but people should show up for work or let their employer(s) know that they are resigning. Not showing up is irresponsible. (Of course, these are politicians.)

And the whole biz is about responsibility. Wisconsin Democrats don’t want to vote on Republican Governor Scott Walker’s proposals to make government employees contribute 5.8 percent of their pay toward their lucrative pensions and 12.6 percent toward their medical insurance premiums, and to end collective bargaining for benefits and work rules, while keeping it for pay.

These are legitimate issues for the legislature. Democracy is about voting on them — even when you won’t win. But by lurking next door in the Land of Lincoln, Democrats can deny the quorum necessary for the legislature to do business.

Citizens have one immediate recourse: Recall.

Under Wisconsin law, no elected official can be recalled in their first year in office. But eight of the 14 shirking senators could be recalled right now. Were a mere two of them recalled, Republican senators would alone constitute a quorum.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Voters Need Not Apply

Colorado politicians have hatched a scheme, Senate Concurrent Amendment 1, that may solve the awful problem of those pesky Colorado voters passing reforms like term limits and the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, the state’s quite effective spending cap.

SCR‑1 solves the alleged problem of too many constitutional amendments by — you guessed it — enacting yet another constitutional amendment. As the Senate yesterday passed SCR‑1, sending it to the House, Democratic Senator Linda Newell of Denver complained, “I am embarrassed to see how many changes are in our constitution.”

She should be. While most of the 16 amendments enacted in the last decade were proposed by legislators (ten, or 62.5 percent), the measure the snooty senator supports is designed to disrupt only the citizen initiative process. 

SCR‑1 prevents a majority of Colorado voters from passing amendments by requiring a 60 percent supermajority — that is, allowing a 40 percent minority to block any reform. This works great for big labor and big business interests who can spend big bucks running nasty 30-​second TV ads to create enough doubt to hold an initiative one vote under 60 percent.

Worse yet, if SCR‑1 passes, legislators would still be able to put term limits or the state’s spending limit on the ballot for repeal by a simple majority. An interesting principle: new reform requires a supermajority, but lower percentages may gut term limits or dump the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall

Swiss Gun Control

In mid-​February, Swiss voters rejected stricter gun controls.

No one knows how many guns the Swiss own. There’s no national registration system, yet the Swiss do not suffer a high crime rate, like America does.

But the country does have the highest gun suicide rate in Europe.

The stranger issue, though — and in contrast to most countries around the world — is the number of semi-​automatic rifles belonging to the army that soldiers and ex-​soldiers store at home. It’s part of the Swiss defense plan. The army can quickly rise up in case of an attack.

The gun control proposal would have required solders’ firearms to be locked up in armories. This, it was argued, was to help reduce suicide rates … though a few high-​profile shootings also gave impetus to the gun control measure. During the debate much was made of the country’s long history of firearm expertise and unique military heritage. 

The measure was defeated in 20 of Switzerland’s 26 cantons, with over 56 percent of voters rejecting it, nationwide. 

Does the Swiss system seem strange?

It’s certainly different.

Switzerland still uses conscripts, while the U.S. rightly recruits an all-​volunteer military. But their method of decentralized governance, borrowed more than 150 years ago from us and today far more decentralized than ours, is wise not only for the firepower of national defense, but for more bang for the buck in all areas of government. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.