Tag: initiative

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initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders nannyism Regulating Protest

Who Works For Whom?

Senator, David Hogue, petition, initiative, ballot, democracy, North Dakota

On the difference between citizen control and a cheap imitation…

Rob Port likes something I do not: North Dakota’s Senate Concurrent Resolution 4001. 

I have previously applauded Port in this space, for his excellent political commentary on Say Anything Blog, columns for the Forum News Service, and on his WDAY AM-​970 radio show in Fargo.

Today? Boos.

The constitutional amendment, pre-​filed for next year’s session by Sen. David Hogue (R‑Minot), would require any future constitutional amendment petitioned onto the ballot by citizens and then passed by voters in a statewide General Election to … pass the Legislature twice — in two separate sessions — to be enacted. 

Hogue’s amendment exterminates the power of the people to bind their representatives constitutionally, arming the Legislature with a veto to overrule the people. 

Port worries that the ballot initiative process has “become an avenue by which deep-​pocketed, mostly out-​of-​state interests” are “buying their way onto the ballot and drowning out opposition with expensive marketing.”

He points to Measure 1, an ethics amendment, funded by “Hollywood activists.” In full disclosure, Liberty Initiative Fund contributed $250,000 from “out of state” to help a North Dakota committee place Measure 2 for “citizen only voting” onto last November’s ballot. But these measures were sponsored and voted for by the citizens of North Dakota, who have every constitutional right to work with folks from outside the Peace Garden State. Even me.

This is worse than the “overkill” Port admits. It changes the rules so that the people could no longer check their elected officials, but only beg those officials for any desired reform.

Thus defeating the very purpose of the citizen initiative process. 

SCR 4001 is democratic suicide. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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Senator, David Hogue, petition, initiative, ballot, democracy, North Dakota

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initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Suppressed Measure Woulda Won

Regnat Populus, Arkansas, term limits, initiative

Arkansas politicians and their cronies were terrified by Issue 3. So when this tough state legislative term limits measure was approved for the ballot, foes of citizen-​controlled government sued to kill it.

Agreeing that thousands of already-​approved signatures of bonafide registered voters must be tossed because of new, legislatively-​imposed, byzantine, legal technicalities, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that the measure was unsuited for ballot. Yet it was too late to pull it.

The vote simply wouldn’t count, that’s all.

So, why was Issue 3 proposed?

A few years earlier, in 2014, lawmakers had posted a deceptive ballot question consisting of a laundry list of “ethics reforms.” Carefully obscured in the measure was a massive increase in legislative tenure. Sadly, the scam succeeded and voters passed the measure, which allows legislators now to serve up to 16 years (or more) in one seat.

To fix this, Issue 3 sought to impose a maximum of three two-​year terms in the house, two four-​year terms in the senate, and ten years on overall legislative service. It would also have prohibited lawmakers from sending future term limits measures to the ballot. 

After November 6, votes on Issue 3 did get reported in at least some counties. Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times notes that in Pulaski, Washington, and Pope Counties, the Yes vote for 3 exceeds 75 percent. I’m sure these counties are representative.

“I think the term limits crowd should try again,” Brantley says, “if the state motto is to be Regnat Populus rather than Regnat Lobbyist.”

Agreed. 

Let the people rule.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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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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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
ballot access incumbents initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Intentionally Confounding Incumbents

Memphis, ballot, instant runoff, term limits

The three issues on the ballot in Memphis this November are “not complicated,” writes Commercial Appeal columnist David Waters, “unless you read the actual ballot questions.”

Which is all most voters will see.

All three directly affect the self-​interest of members of the Memphis City Council, which placed them on the ballot and determined the language voters will attempt to decipher. 

Waters called that ballot wording “incomprehensible” and “intentionally confounding.” His newspaper colleague, Ryan Poe, accused the council of “trying to stack the deck.”

The first measure would weaken the council’s term limits, passed in 2011 with a 78 percent vote and just about to kick in. The ballot language, Mr. Poe explains, “reads like voters are being asked to place limits on council members … rather than extend them.” By an extra term.

The second issue would repeal Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), which was brought forth by citizen petition and enacted via a 71 percent yes vote. The confusing ballot wording brings up a 1991 federal court decision without providing voters any context or explanation.

Though IRV has not yet been used, council incumbents fear it.* This becomes especially clear when you discover that the third ballot question is actually a sneakier, second attempt to repeal IRV.

“Instant runoffs, and run-​off elections in general, tend to make it easier for challengers to unseat incumbents in multi-​candidate district races,” argues Waters. He adds, “Incumbents generally become stronger the longer they are in office.”

To incumbent politicians, reform is a dirty word. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Back in February, the council was caught paying a lobbyist to convince state legislators to restrict their city’s ability to implement Instant Runoff Voting. 

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Categories
Accountability government transparency incumbents initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders nannyism political challengers Regulating Protest term limits too much government

Strange It Is

Arlington, Texas, term limits, democracy, initiative,City Council,

Strange for the Arlington, Texas, City Council to hold a meeting on a Sunday evening, much less one to “consider suspending the city charter.”

That is how the Fort Worth Star-​Telegram reported “the latest twist in the term limit controversy that has engulfed the city with a lawsuit and competing ballot proposals.”

Led by Zack Maxwell, citizens in this Fort Worth adjacent community of 400,000 gathered 11,000 voter signatures to place a term limits charter amendment on the November ballot. It would limit councilmembers to three two-​year terms. It also figures in past service, so five of the eight current councilmembers would be blocked from seeking re-​election in the coming two years.

With swift legislative prowess, the council responded, passing its own competing “term limits” measure, which incidentally allows them to stay 50 percent longer in office.

But there’s one problem: the council did not follow the law, which requires multiple readings, with one at a regular meeting. 

Actually, there’s a second problem: Mr. Maxwell challenged the council’s unlawful action in court. 

The court blocked the council’s measure. 

That left the council holding an unusual weekend meeting to suspend the rules and re-​pass their fumbled alternative to the term limits voters really want. But news travels fast and city hall was “packed.” 

“You’re suspending the rules because your jobs are in jeopardy,” charged one man.

A woman told the council, “You guys should be absolutely embarrassed about this.”

“After hearing from dozens of angry residents,” the paper explained, “[t]he council voted unanimously to not suspend the rules, finally killing its own term limit proposal.”

Politicians doing the right thing … having exhausted every other possibility.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

 

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Photo from the Fort Worth Star-​Telegram