Wednesday, February 20, 2008

McManus wants to put the whammy on ballot initiatives

Only the insanely wealthy would be able to run citizen initiatives if this were to pass - say hello to 2008 Senate Joint Resolution K.

Introduced by Sen. Michelle McManus on February 12, 2008, to place before voters in the next general election a Constitutional amendment to require petitions for citizen initiatives to create a law, or a referendum disapproving a just-passed law, to be signed by registered voters who are residents in at least three-fourths of 110 state House districts, and who, in each of those House districts, equal at least 7 percent of the number who voted in that district in the last gubernatorial election. Under current law there is no requirement to collect signatures in a certain number of districts (the aggregate total number just has to be submitted from anywhere in the state). Also, under current law the total signature requirement for referendums is 5 percent. See also Senate Bills 1086 and 1087.


I've often thought it might be a bit too easy to amend our Constitution by ballot initiative (mostly out of disgust for the last two Prop 2s), but this seems a bit much.

And seeing how it was introduced by McManus... well, that should go without saying.