A PROMISE TO KEEP: 5%
A Ballot Committee of
Citizens for Limited Taxation & Government
PO Box 408 * Peabody, MA 01960
Phone:(617) 248-0022 * E-Mail: cltg@cltg.org
Visit our web-page at: http://cltg.org
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*** Promise Update #2 ***
Thursday, January 29, 1998

NEWS RELEASE
January 29, 1998
Re: Anderson vs. Galvin

Anderson vs. Galvin is the title of civil action number 98-0462-B, the "verified complaint" that was filed this morning in Suffolk Superior Court by Promise attorney Steve Epstein. The plaintiffs are Barbara Anderson, Robert "Chip" Ford, and eight other original signers of the initiative petition to roll back the state income tax rate from 5.95 to 5 percent. The defendant is William Francis Galvin, who as Secretary of State has been told by the state Ballot Law Commission that the initiative petition has insufficient signatures to proceed towards the 1998 state ballot.

Promise seeks a declaratory judgment and injunctive relief from the Superior Court. We have reviewed just over half of the approximately 11,000 signatures that were not certified by city/town registrars of voters after the fall petition drive, and have determined that more than 1,300 are those of registered voters who *should have been counted.* We expect to find many more as we review the rest of the uncertified signatures.

We have also found that 218 names that were rejected for signing the petition twice *should have been allowed* because we cannot find the second signature. In addition, various registrars *erred in counting* the certified signatures on the petition sheets and when properly recounted, these sheets will give us another 53 signatures.

Since we had 81 more signatures than necessary when we first filed the petition in December, and lost only 437 to the Ballot Law Commission challenge, we only need 356 signatures to be ordered back on track toward the November ballot.

We are asking the Court to order the Secretary of State to transmit our petition to the clerk of the House of Representatives. The Legislature must act by May 6th, and if it votes "No" or ignores the petition, we must collect an additional 10,821 certified signatures.

To add to the confusion, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, which prevailed before the Ballot Law Commission last week, is now appealing that decision in a separate action. We, who ostensibly lost last week, are delighted with the Ballot Law Commission, which gave the benefit of the doubt to petition signers on most of the signatures challenged by the Teachers.

The question remains: Why are the Teachers spending all this time and money just to keep the people they’ve educated from voting on this issue?

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You can e-mail A Promise to Keep: 5% at --> cltg@cltg.org
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