Category: initiative, referendum, and recall

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ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall

ACORN Falls Far From the Tree

Far left groups like the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center cry “fraud” whenever conservative groups make any mistakes in petition or voter registration drives. In fact, they scream “fraud” even when there aren’t mistakes made.

Funny, then, that I haven’t heard a peep from these creeps concerning the serious fraud allegations leveled at ACORN.

ACORN — that’s the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now — has deluged election officials all across the country with hundreds of thousands of fictitious voter registrations. In one state, the group knowingly hired convicts to register new voters.

The FBI is now looking into the group.

Even before these fraud allegations hit the national news, several outfits were highlighting ACORN’s conduct.

Just recently, Americans for Limited Government began a nationwide campaign, StopAcorn​.org, to demand investigation into the group’s wrongdoing.

Ballotpedia​.org has launched the Voter Integrity Project, which chronicles voter fraud, including ACORN’s activities.

Of course, ACORN isn’t limited to election-​related shenanigans. The group also has a long track record of helping politicians bully banks into handing out high-​risk, so-​called “affirmative action” mortgage loans. Which, thanks a lot, helped bring us the housing crisis.

You might also be interested to learn that ACORN does it all on your nickel. About 40 percent of ACORN’s funding comes from taxpayers.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall

Real Change at the Ballot Box

It’s time to face the fact: We don’t have much say-​so in Washington. Take the bailout plan. Please. Though much opposed by the public, politicians insisted on passing something nonetheless. So they did, over outpourings of popular opposition.

And if you think your vote for president will change something, remember: Both major party candidates supported the bailout. And both are heading campaigns run by the same old insiders.

My advice? Get involved closer to home. State and local voters will get the opportunity to make a change this November — not by electing some a politician who will betray them, but by passing or rejecting proposed laws directly.

In Washington State, for example, voters can un-​jam traffic with I‑985. The initiative is a common-​sense measure requiring that traffic lights be synchronized and a higher percentage of current funding be spent to ease congestion.

In South Dakota, voters can prevent the abuse of public money by passing Initiated Measure 10, which stops government funded associations from using tax dollars to further their own political agenda. The measure is being opposed by — you guessed it — government-​funded associations.

North Dakotans get a chance to decide Measure 2, a 15 percent cut in corporate income taxes and a 50 percent cut in the personal income tax.

There are, of course, plenty of measures on the ballot with which I don’t agree. But even then, better the people deciding than career politicians.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Fast-​Moving Planet

This presidential campaign is about change, but it’s outside of government that change comes fast and furious. Maybe it’s just my advancing age but the world seems to be speeding 90 miles an hour into the future.

Actually, we’re spinning at over 1,000 miles an hour and soaring around the Sun at 67 times that rate. Some days it feels like it.

Yes, there is going to be change. It ought to come from us, not the insiders — or the politicians running to purportedly change Washington, or to change your neck of the woods, often after decades in office.

Most of our changes won’t come through government policies. They’ll happen in the marketplace, or at church, through a non-​profit group, or in the neighborhood or family. But some changes do require politics.

Then, “We, the People” must be able to act. Which means citizens must be able to pass an initiative or call a referendum on a law passed by legislators.

Americans overwhelmingly agree, but some reformers don’t get it.

Once I argued with a major term limits supporter who suggested that term limits would improve legislatures enough to render the initiative process unnecessary.

Not long after, I debated an advocate of public financing for political campaigns. He said the initiative wouldn’t be needed once his reform was achieved.

There are many reforms. Because we live in an ever-​changing world, we need the ability to keep making reforms. That’s the voter initiative.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Letting Citizens Vote

Congressman Randy Kuhl has the right idea. Or half of it.

His notion is to let constituents help him choose the bill he will introduce in the Congress this fall. It’s part of what he calls the “Fix Washington” Project. Most people think Washington is broken. So Congressman Kuhl wants constituents to tell him how it might be fixed.

Voters in his district were invited to submit their suggestions for legislation that might put DC back together again. He received four hundred suggestions. Of these, he picked five for everybody to vote on. Some of the proposals make me think that my idea of fixing Washington isn’t always the same as other people’s idea of fixing Washington. But I like number five: term limit the Congress.

The proposed term limits are kind of weak, capping the tenure of both senators and House members at twelve years. And I doubt such a bill would get past square one with this Congress. But sure, let’s go for it. At this moment, the winning proposal hasn’t been announced. But I’m rooting for term limits.

I’m also rooting for a way to give all voters a chance to propose and even pass laws statewide, locally, nationally. Twenty-​four states have the right of citizen initiative, which enables voters to end-​run the stonewalling of their sometime representatives. Let’s make that possible everywhere.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall insider corruption

A Rose Blooms in Michigan

Rose Bogeart reminds me of my mother. Both are from Michigan. Rose is the president of the Wayne County Taxpayers Association. Mom hails from Jackson. Both love their Detroit Tigers, hate tax increases.

Rose led this year’s charge to recall Michigan House Speaker Andy Dillon. I’ve talked before about the tax hike state legislators imposed against the clear wishes of Michigan citizens. I’ve also exposed the establishment’s incredible intimidation campaign to block Rose’s recall drive.

This harassment included bad actions by state employees working for Dillon and even some police groups. Despite this, Rose and company collected nearly twice the number of voter signatures needed.

In June, Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land ruled that the petition lacked the requisite signatures, after she had opted to enforce restrictions already ruled unconstitutional in very clear U.S. Supreme Court decisions, throwing out a huge batch of signatures. Then, the Michigan courts refused to give Rose and Redford Township recall advocates any relief.

So, Rose went to federal court, where a judge quickly granted an injunction requiring Secretary of State Land to count the disputed signatures.

Now, against every sling and arrow imaginable, Speaker Dillon’s recall will be on the November ballot.

For the first time ever, a state’s House speaker may be removed by popular vote.

Rose, I thank you; history thanks you; my mother thanks you.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall property rights

Two Pols vs. the People

Governor Deval Patrick laid his cards on the table pretty plainly when he vetoed a home rule petition from the town of Amesbury, Massachussetts.

Had Patrick signed off, the town could have adopted tougher restrictions on the use of eminent domain than the state as a whole. In fact, the town would have banned the use of eminent domain to transfer property between private parties.

Patrick says he rejected the petition because of “significant opposition to this bill at the local level.”

That opposition certainly isn’t coming from property owners worried about developers trying to grab their land.

As for Amesbury voters, they passed the measure to submit this petition at the ballot box, and it was unanimously approved by the town council. Then it made it through the state legislature before reaching the governor’s desk. About a month before he vetoed it, Governor Patrick himself voiced support for the bill when he was in Amesbury.

Of course, the persons who want a free hand to grab property whenever they like are the ones who oppose the petition. These include the current Amesbury mayor, Thatcher Kezer, who says there’s “no need” for Amesbury to differ from the rest of the state when it comes to stomping on property owners.

Deval cites such opposition as if it could justify his contempt for Amesbury voters and their property rights. But politicians like Kezer will never voluntarily relinquish the power to rob their neighbors.

Unfortunately, that’s common sense.

I’m Paul Jacob.