Tag: citizen's initiative

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initiative, referendum, and recall

Meet the Mob

citizen's initiative, democracy, mob, North Dakota, initiative

North Dakota faces a serious problem: The Mob. 

“The point of being a republic is so that Mob doesn’t rule,” warned Chris Berg, host of Point of View on Fargo, North Dakota’s Valley News Live. “If you live in a true democracy that’s where Mob can rule.”

Berg called citizens petitioning issues onto the ballot for a vote “a mob-​rule system … that allows us to change the actual constitution of our state.”

Not sure which constitution one might work to amend except for the “actual” constitution. But I do see a clearly articulated concern with mob rule. 

“A republic, my folks, is what we live in,” continued Berg, juxtaposing the ballot initiative process as “a pure democratic system.”

But ballot measures are no more pure democracy than are acts enacted by the legislature. Both can be challenged and overturned if they violate constitutional rights.

The focus of Berg’s anti-​initiative worry is Measure 1, an ethics amendment passed last November and derided by Berg as “a bunch of Hollywood money to change North Dakota.” 

True, Measure 1 did receive support from folks outside North Dakota, including groups supported by Hollywood stars. 

Those financial backers were well known to North Dakotans, 54 percent of whom voted for the measure. 

And freedom means the right to associate with fellow Americans across state lines. 

Responding to Berg, Dustin Gawrylow, managing director of the North Dakota Watchdog Network, said the citizen initiative process was “the best way to keep legislators honest and in tune with the people.”

After all, without “a way for the people to actually set the rules for lawmakers,” the people would be ruled by … the capitol mob.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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citizen's initiative, democracy, mob, North Dakota, initiative

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initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders term limits

The Seinfeld Referendum

nothing, Washington, pay raise, Tim Eyman,

There is an unmistakable connection between Washington State initiative guru Tim Eyman and New York City comedian Jerry Seinfeld.

Mr. Seinfeld gave viewers what they wanted for nine seasons as the star of the self-​named 1990s hit television sitcom, Seinfeld. It was slyly defined as “a show about nothing.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Eyman has been giving voters what they want (psst: more choices) for even longer — initiating ten successful ballot measures in the last two decades. And, believe-​it-​or-​not, Eyman’s latest ballot measure is also “about nothing.”

The Washington State Citizens’ Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials “is recommending raises over the next two years totaling 17.6 percent for legislators, 17.8 percent for judges, 6.6 percent for Gov. Jay Inslee, 13 percent for Lt. Gov. Cyrus Habib as well as increases for others,” the Statesman-​Examiner (Colville, Washington) reports.

This is one of those faux citizens’ commissions. “It’s totally rigged,” Eyman tells supporters, adding that “one of [the commissioners] is actually the husband of a state supreme court justice!”

Eyman reminds his fellow citizens of the Evergreen State that, regardless of the size of any proposed pay hike, they possess “the absolute right” to a referendum vote on the matter.

“Politicians say they are just scraping by. I think they can make it,” mocks Eyman to reporters. “[Governor] Jay Inslee will have to scrape by with $354,000 over the next two years.”

Along with Spokane resident Jack Fagan and Spokane City Councilman Mike Fagan, Eyman prefiled a referendum to reverse these pay raises. It’s called the “Give Them Nothing!” Referendum.

Has a nice ring to it, no?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall insider corruption term limits

Corruption, Arkansas-​Style

Arkansas, term limits, corruption, rules, regulations, initiative, democracy

On Friday, the Arkansas Supreme Court struck Issue 3, a citizen-​initiated measure to restore legislative term limits, from Arkansas’ November ballot. The Court declared, 4 – 3, that there weren’t enough “valid” signatures.

This, despite opponents never disputing that more than enough Arkansas voters had signed the petition.

In recent years, legislators have enacted a slew of convoluted laws, purposely designed to wreck the initiative and referendum process.* The regulations give insiders and partisans a myriad of hyper-​technical “gotchas” that can be used to disqualify whole sheets of bonafide voter signatures.

“The legislature,” explained former Governor Mike Huckabee recently, “sucker-​punched the people of Arkansas and expanded their terms. They did it, I think, very dishonestly — by calling it an ethics bill … that had nothing to do with ethics. It was all about giving themselves longer terms.”

Since getting away with that 2014 ballot con job, giving themselves a whopping 16 years in office, seven Arkansas state legislators have been indicted or convicted of corruption. The author of that tricky ballot measure, former Sen. Jon Woods, just began serving an 18-​year federal prison sentence for corruption.

Other corruption, that is.

“It’s one reason I think term limits are a very important part of our political system today,” said Huckabee. It is, he argued, “easier to get involved in things that are corrupt the longer you stay.”

Now, sadly, after 2014’s fraudulent ballot measure and two 4 – 3 state supreme court decisions neutering the entire ballot initiative process, political corruption can continue unabated in the Natural State. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The state supreme court has ignored the clear language in the state constitution regarding such petitions: “No legislation shall be enacted to restrict, hamper or impair the exercise of the rights herein reserved to the people.”

N.B. For relevant links, check yesterday’s splash page for this weekend’s Townhall column.

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Categories
ballot access general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall media and media people Regulating Protest

Three Bad Propositions

initiative, petition, power, money, elections

Two propositions on this November’s California ballot, Propositions 8 and 11, have found an opponent.

“Both would have voters decide very narrow union-​management conflicts in two relatively small medical service sectors,” explains Dan Walters, long the dean of California columnists. Unions are sponsoring Prop 8, which “purports to limit profits in clinics that provide dialysis treatments to sufferers of kidney failure.” Ambulance companies are behind Prop 11, which would “require ambulance crews to remain on call during meal and rest breaks.”

Walters thinks it “foolish to expect November’s nine-​plus million voters to make even semi-​informed decisions about their provisions, much less understand how dialysis clinics and ambulance services operate, or should operate.”

Well, yes, but this criticism applies to government universally. Legislators don’t understand how every business or industry functions, or should function, either. Even when politicians pretend to comprehend, by what right do they micromanage other people’s businesses and labor contracts?

Freedom, not government regulation, should be the default position.

But Walters’ fix runs against this logic. He thinks that upping the required percentage of signatures for ballot placement “by half … might discourage the misuse of the system for issues that cannot be fairly and rationally decided by voters.”

Don’t bet on it.

As Walters himself admits, making it tougher and more expensive to petition a measure onto the ballot won’t block the well-​heeled: “any interest group with a few million bucks and an axe to grind can qualify a ballot measure, regardless of their merits.”

But it would disenfranchise grassroots groups.

Defeat bad measures; don’t destroy the democratic process.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Categories
Accountability general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders

Citizens Triumphant

Ohio, initiative, legislature, Ohio Constitutional Modernization Commission,

Last week, the Ohio Constitutional Modernization Commission considered whether to recommend a constitutional change to create an obvious double standard: requiring citizen-​initiated constitutional amendments to obtain a 55 percent supermajority vote, while the very same amendments proposed by legislators would only need 50-​percent-​plus-​one for passage.

I traveled to the capitol in Columbus, joining a room full of Ohio citizens and organizations testifying in opposition. As I explained at Townhall yesterday, after hearing from the people, the Commission tabled the idea.*

For more than four years, the Constitutional Revision and Updating Committee deliberated over how to improve the constitution and came to a consensus in favor of the aforementioned double standard (sent to the full Commission). And yet, at a well-​attended public hearing, no one defended the proposal.

While bias favoring the legislature seemed obvious, commissioners bristled at the suggestion that — established and funded by the legislature — they lacked independence. “If there were one or two legislative members on our committee, that was it,” offered non-​legislator Janet Abaray. 

Actually, four of the nine members on Abaray’s committee are currently state legislators — not one or two. Plus, two more previously served in the legislature. That’s two-​thirds of the committee comprised of current or former legislators.

Moreover, the published minutes provide a peek into the thinking behind the proposed double standard. For instance, “what have emerged lately are initiated amendments to the constitution that are inconsistent with the purpose of the constitution.”

It is the people who will decide what belongs in the people’s constitution — not the legislature.

And not the legislature’s commission. 

That’s the truth that Ohioans spoke to power. 

And power listened. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The commission came to this conclusion with only one dissenting vote.

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