Citizens for Limited Taxation & Government
"The Commonwealth Activist Network"
18 Tremont Street #608 * Boston, MA 02108
Phone:(617) 248-0022 * E-Mail: cltg@cltg.org
Visit our web-page at: http://cltg.org
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NEWS RELEASE
Friday, March 20, 1998

Contact: Chip Ford - (978) 538-3900
         Barbara Anderson - (617) 248-0022

Democracy Under Siege
Citizens’ Right to Petition in Danger

The initiative-referendum process has come under yet another frivolous attack by well-funded special interests.

In what has become too common an attack tactic, well-heeled special interests will challenge another successful petition before the state Ballot Law Commission.

Frivolous challenges burden citizen-groups with extreme financial hardship and overwhelming demands on volunteer time—deep-pockets opponents with vested personal interests recognize the advantage they have over grassroots efforts.

The Campaign for Fair Electric Rates, headed by John O’Connor, turned in *over 12,000 certified signatures more than required* to put a referendum on the November ballot. It would offer voters an opportunity to consider the recent energy deregulation law, and to repeal it if so inclined.

Nonetheless, the petition is being challenged on several frivolous grounds:

· That some petitions with 9,000 signatures are (a new term!) "boughten petitions," apparently meaning the signatures were collected by paid petitioners while construing anyone’s name on the top of any petition as being that of a paid petitioner;

· That the "content and form" are unconstitutional, in that the Secretary of State didn’t print the summary flush with the top edge of the petition, and instead printed the Commonwealth of Massachusetts seal and other information, as has always been done;

· That the sponsors stamped their mailing address on each petition: a charge the Ballot Law Commission found "frivolous" in a 1996 challenge of our Coalition for Payraise Repeal petition and threw out;

· That proponents highlighted some sections of the summary on some petitions, and;

· That *over 3,000 signatures* are fraudulent or not of registered voters.

The 1996 "frivolous" challenge against the CPR petition needlessly cost our committee thousands of dollars and volunteer man-hours to successfully defend. The present challenge against our "A Promise to Keep: 5%" petition by the state teachers union and the Tax Equity Alliance of Massachusetts (TEAM) so far has cost far, far more both in volunteer and staff time and in money.

As Jim St. George of TEAM recently acknowledged of their challenge, it’s less expensive to tie up your opponents in court and hope to defeat them there than it is to wage a campaign of ideas and hope to win over the voters.

If these frivolous challenges are not themselves ended—by the Ballot Law Commission, in the courts, or by law—they sound the inevitable death knell of the citizens initiative-referendum process in Massachusetts; soon available only to the wealthiest special interests.

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You can e-mail CLT&G at --> cltg@cltg.org
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