CLT
UPDATE
Thursday, October 7, 2004
Democracy strangled at last
Citizens who want to pass laws but lack legislative support have used the ballot initiative process for nearly a century, doing so to cap property tax increases, institute English immersion, lower the income tax and even authorize professional baseball games on Sundays.
But for the first time in 20 years, Massachusetts residents will have no statewide ballot questions to vote on this November, as initiative sponsors abandon issue campaigns, frustrated by the process of gathering signatures and mindful that the Legislature has not always implemented voter-passed laws....
Despite the dearth of questions this year, some lawmakers say initiative questions are becoming too commonplace, and say the process should be revised to limit the number that make it to the ballot....
One of the most successful question sponsors, Citizens for Limited
Taxation, announced last month it will stop launching petition drives until there are enough legislators to sustain a veto or until the Legislature repeals its "freeze" on the income tax rollback voters approved ...
"It's clear that lobbying doesn't do any good, so petition drives were our modus operandi," CLT head
Barbara Anderson said in an interview. "But after we file petitions, the Legislature repeals or ignores it. What's the point?"
In addition to halting the tax rollback, legislators also ignored residents' wishes when they voted for public financing of campaigns, Anderson said. The Legislature never appropriated the money and then repealed the so-called Clean Elections law after putting their own advisory question on the ballot.
Instead of initiating ballot campaigns, CLT's political action committee is now supporting 90 legislative candidates, (none are Democrats), who have defended the income tax rollback and have signed a no-new-taxes pledge.
Anderson said she hopes the election of some of those candidates will force lawmakers to reconsider their positions. "If enough of them get elected to scare the incumbents, they might actually start obeying the voters," Anderson said....
Sen. Stanley Rosenberg (D-Amherst) and Rep. Robert Spellane (D-Worcester) cosponsored two pieces of legislation last year that would have made significant changes in the system....
Secretary of State William Galvin said he disagrees with increasing the standards for qualifying ballot questions. "It's more difficult here already to get questions on the ballot," Galvin said. "This year's absence is a clear indication of that, and I don't see any reason we should make it more difficult."
CLT's Anderson said she is unsure what the group will do if their candidates aren't elected and if they continue to have difficulty enforcing voter-approved laws.
State House News Service
Tuesday, October 5, 2004
For the first time in 20 years,
voters face no statewide ballot questions
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
I got my "Official Massachusetts Information for
Voters" booklet in the mail yesterday from the Office of the
Secretary of State. I almost mistook it for another piece of junk mail,
a flyer trying to sell me something I didn't need or want, and tossed it
into the circular file.
I have a collection of voter information booklets
dating back to 1996 and will add this one to my collection, I think. But
I'm not sure this is necessary.
In past years, the Voter Information booklets have
included details and summaries of all the questions that would appear on
the November ballot. The 1998 booklet took 72 pages to inform us of what
was there for us to vote upon.
Counting the cover/back pages, there was page 3
"How to Register to Vote, page 4 "Voting," page 6
"Protecting Your Financial Future" and "Home Heating
Assistance," there is one page -- ONE PAGE! -- dedicated to
"Local Binding Ballot Questions" covering 24 communities out
of 351. There's a total of seven, virtually eight, useless pages mailed out to every
voter-household in the commonwealth at taxpayer-expense. It could have
been done with a one-page mailer to select communities.
For the first time in twenty years, there will be no
statewide
ballot questions to decide.
And for good reason. For a number of good reasons in
fact.
The Powers That Be have pounded a stake through the
heart of the citizens' initiative and referendum process in a death of a
thousand cuts. For all intent, they have managed to kill it in its
cradle.
But still that's not enough. State Sen. Stanley
Rosenberg remains adamant to finally suffocate what life remains beneath the pillow of
his
proposed legislation.
Beginning with the teachers
union challenge of our tax rollback petition in 1998, the new
"bright line" definition of what qualifies a petition has
made it almost impossible for mere citizens to volunteer their time to
successfully collect signatures. After months of individual
signature-by-signature challenge by attorneys for the teachers union,
we failed by a mere 26 signers. And even when we managed to collect
more than enough in 2000, the Legislature just gave us the Beacon Hill
Middle Finger Salute after we won the vote by 59-41 percent.
Yes, a huge piece of democracy has been usurped
from us, eroded little by little until we've reached this point. The
once-proud "Cradle of Liberty" no longer rocks, has been cut
from the bough.
"But for the first time in 20 years, Massachusetts residents will have no statewide ballot questions to vote on this
November."
This was all we had left. What a crying shame. This
is why we need to elect reformers to the Legislature next month who
respect voters ... after they've been elected too.
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Chip Ford |
State House News Service
Tuesday, October 5, 2004
For the first time in 20 years,
voters face no statewide ballot questions
By Cyndi Roy
Citizens who want to pass laws but lack legislative support have used the ballot initiative process for nearly a century, doing so to cap property tax increases, institute English immersion, lower the income tax and even authorize professional baseball games on Sundays.
But for the first time in 20 years, Massachusetts residents will have no statewide ballot questions to vote on this November, as initiative sponsors abandon issue campaigns, frustrated by the process of gathering signatures and mindful that the Legislature has not always implemented voter-passed laws.
This year, leading ballot campaign sponsors say they have become discouraged by strict rules guiding the initiative procedure. Of the 11 questions originally proposed for the 2004 ballot, none made the cut, due to mostly to a lack of signatures, according to Secretary of State William Galvin's office.
Despite the dearth of questions this year, some lawmakers say initiative questions are becoming too commonplace, and say the process should be revised to limit the number that make it to the ballot.
One of the most successful question sponsors, Citizens for Limited Taxation, announced last month it will stop launching petition drives until there are enough legislators to sustain a veto or until the Legislature repeals its "freeze" on the income tax rollback voters approved 56 to 38 percent four years ago.
Citing a weakened economy and slumping tax collections in 2002, lawmakers voted to "freeze" the tax rate at 5.3 percent until state finances improved enough to eventually resume the rollback to 5 percent.
"It's clear that lobbying doesn't do any good, so petition drives were our modus operandi," CLT head Barbara Anderson said in an interview. "But after we file petitions, the Legislature repeals or ignores it. What's the point?"
In addition to halting the tax rollback, legislators also ignored residents' wishes when they voted for public financing of campaigns, Anderson said. The Legislature never appropriated the money and then repealed the so-called Clean Elections law after putting their own advisory question on the ballot.
Instead of initiating ballot campaigns, CLT's political action committee is now supporting 90 legislative candidates, (none are Democrats), who have defended the income tax rollback and have signed a no-new-taxes pledge.
Anderson said she hopes the election of some of those candidates will force lawmakers to reconsider their positions. "If enough of them get elected to scare the incumbents, they might actually start obeying the voters," Anderson said.
This year is only the eighth year in the history of citizen petitions that no questions made the statewide ballot.
Other referendum sponsors say the process of placing a question before voters is stringent, and too rarely pays off. In order to qualify for the ballot, sponsors have eight weeks to collect roughly 65,000 certified signatures. The actual number of signatures is determined by calculating a percentage of the number of residents who voted in the previous gubernatorial election, according to the Secretary of State's Office.
Usually, campaigns need to gather closer to 100,000 signatures since many may wind up disqualified because they are illegible or fraudulent, said Pamela Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts.
Once verified by both the Secretary of State and the Attorney General, sponsors must gather another roughly 18,000 signatures to make it to the ballot.
"In Massachusetts, it is the most difficult of the states to qualify," Wilmot said. "A lot of groups are asking, is it really worth it?"
Of the 53 citizen's initiatives that have appeared on the ballot since 1919, 25 have been approved, according to the Secretary of State's Office. Ten referendums out of 18 filed have also been passed by voters, repealing laws on the books.
According to Wilmot, Massachusetts allows the shortest amount of time to collect signatures. Florida, she said, requires many more signatures than Massachusetts, but advocates are given more time to collect them.
Twenty-four states have similar initiative processes, according to a report by the National Conference of State Legislators.
This year, Common Cause has launched its Fair Districts for Fair Elections campaign, an advisory ballot question in 27 Massachusetts communities that asks voters if they support stripping lawmakers of their power to create congressional and state legislative districts. If voters approve the question, Common Cause will bring it statewide in 2006, Wilmot said.
"Not only do we need the troops for a statewide campaign, we also need the momentum," Wilmot said. "This is a way of keeping our citizens activists in good form while we test the waters with the public."
But while advocates argue the process for getting a question on the ballot is an arduous one, some lawmakers contend it's too easy, and are working to tighten the requirements.
Sen. Stanley Rosenberg (D-Amherst) and Rep. Robert Spellane (D-Worcester) cosponsored two pieces of legislation last year that would have made significant changes in the system. One, a proposed constitutional amendment, would have raised the number of signatures required to get a question onto the ballot. The question was never taken up in this year's Constitutional Convention that was dominated by the gay marriage debate.
A separate bill, which died in committee, would have imposed stricter financial reporting requirements on those for and against any question, changed the method for crafting explanations of the question for voters, and imposed restrictions on those who collect signatures.
Rosenberg said he plans to refile the legislation because he feels it has become too easy to get a question on the ballot. The signature requirements have not been changed since the 1950s. Since then the population and number of registered voters has grown. But the percentage who vote has decreased.
"If fewer people are voting, fewer voters are making the laws," Rosenberg said. "There aren't enough signatures to make laws that are in the public interest."
And it is job of lawmakers, not citizens, to make laws, he said.
"Since we have a representative form of government, the Legislature is charged with making laws for the people," Rosenberg said. "I'm not opposed to citizens' initiatives as an occasional way for voters to correct errors legislators make or make laws in an area the Legislature refused to act on. But it should be used sparingly."
Secretary of State William Galvin said he disagrees with increasing the standards for qualifying ballot questions. "It's more difficult here already to get questions on the ballot," Galvin said. "This year's absence is a clear indication of that, and I don't see any reason we should make it more difficult."
CLT's Anderson said she is unsure what the group will do if their candidates aren't elected and if they continue to have difficulty enforcing voter-approved laws.
But other groups are more hopeful, despite the difficulties they have encountered.
"This isn't the end of the game for us," said Janet Domenitz, executive director of MASSPIRG, another leading question sponsor. "It's just more like the seventh-inning stretch."
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