|
Edited by Al Ortiz
It is a busy time in the ballot measure world. The first ballot measure election of 2012 in North Carolina will take place today, where the highly-scrutinized Amendment 1 will be decided by voters. In addition, there were two ballot-certifications and two petition drive deadlines this past week.
The total ballot measure count across the country is 92 statewide questions in 31 states.
The first certification that occurred this week came in Arizona where the state legislature voted in favor of a state sovereignty amendment, paving the way for the proposal's ballot access. The measure would declare state sovereignty over the state's natural resources based on the argument of "equal footing." Natural resources would include land, air, water, minerals and wildlife.
This now leaves Arizona with four measures on the statewide ballot. Citizens can also place statewide measures on the ballot in Arizona, and have until the July 5 petition drive deadline to submit the required amount of signatures needed for their proposal to obtain a spot in the general election.
Illinois joined in on the list of states with ballot measures this week, sending a public pension measure to the ballot. If passed, the measure would require a three-fifths approval by the General Assembly, city councils, and school districts that wish to increase the pension benefits of their employees.
The legislatively-referred constitutional amendment locked a spot on the ballot on May 3 when the Illinois Senate approved it with a 51-2 vote. The State House had previously given its approval.
Ballot measure news out of Illinois wasn't just limited to the state legislature. On May 7, the state's petition drive deadline arrived, signaling the end of the petition circulation process.
There were no known active attempts to place a citizen initiative on the ballot this year. However, groups opposing a 2011 law allowing same-sex civil unions have been gathering signatures for an advisory question regarding a referendum on the law. If this question is placed on the ballot it would need to be approved by voters, then approved by the legislature, before finally being sent to voters again as a referendum. No information has been posted on the Illinois Secretary of State's website indicating if this effort turned in signatures. Stay tuned for more updates!
Meanwhile, in Missouri, the complicated initiative process situation didn't discourage supporters from submitting signatures by the May 6 deadline. In all, signatures were submitted for four proposals days before the deadline.
Initiative efforts that turned in signatures to the Missouri Secretary of State's office included a measure to raise the state's minimum wage to $8.25 an hour; an initiative to limit the annual rate of interest, fees, and finance charges for payday loans; a proposal to impose an additional $1 tax on each package of twenty cigarettes for cessation programs; and a constitutional amendment to require that all municipal police forces or departments be controlled by the local governing body.
To qualify for the ballot, each initiated state statute effort is required to get signatures from registered voters equal to 5% of the total votes cast in the 2008 governor's election. This amounts to 91,818 signatures. Constitutional amendments require 146,907 signatures to be placed on the ballot.
The petition drive deadline won't be the last hurdle for initiative organizers in the state. Read more about this here.
On the west coast, the California initiative process could be just as confusing as Missouri's. Petition drive deadline laws in the state may raise some questions about ballot access for 2012 initiatives.
Four major proposed statewide initiatives filed their signatures between May 1 and May 4, with the assumption that they had filed in time to qualify for the November 6 ballot.
However, in advance of every even-numbered year, the California Secretary of State publishes a "suggested initiative deadlines" document. The document works backward from the state's final deadline through the various steps in the qualification process to produce a list of suggested deadlines for the various steps required.
The document is prefaced with a disclaimer, "The following suggested deadlines are not substitutes for California election laws, regulations, or policy. Other factors, such as amending the initiative measure before circulation or the length of time for circulation, will affect the time it takes to complete the process."
If the set of suggested 2012 deadlines is accurate, then April 20 was the last day by which petition sponsors could submit signatures with the hope of qualifying for the November 6, 2012 ballot.
But how set-in-stone are these "suggested deadlines"? Read more about this here.
| 
