CLT
UPDATE
Friday, April 11,
2003
Report on the Committee on Election
Laws hearing
Authors of a major overhaul of the system by which voters take their own initiatives to the ballot said Thursday they are willing to rewrite their proposal in the wake of legal concerns and widespread opposition....
A broad and surprising coalition of groups who use the process to pose radically different questions to voters has formed to oppose what the activists call an outright attack on the initiative petition process and the right of voters to go to the ballot when they believe legislators are unresponsive....
Secretary of State William Galvin told the lawmakers that 65,825 certified signatures will be required to qualify for the ballot during the next two election cycles, and that if the Rosenberg/Spellane plan were in place, 110,000 would be needed to make a change in a law and 119,000 to alter the constitution.
"This legislation is an attack on the rights of Massachusetts voters," Galvin said....
In exchange for the requirement for more signatures, the bill would also give those collecting them another two months for the task. But veteran signature gatherer
Barbara Anderson said that would just make more work for city and town clerks who have to certify the names.
"And we don't want an extra two months," said Anderson in an interview - especially during July and August, when both those signing and those collecting are more interested in vacationing.
Harold Hubschman of SpoonWorks, a Brookline firm that has been hired in the past to collect signatures, said he'd welcome the opportunity to collect signatures during the warm weather and when people tend to be more relaxed. He also commented in an interview about the proposed ban on collecting names for two causes at the same time. "That's just an annoyance. All I'd have to do is set up multiple companies."
State House News Service
Thursday, April 10, 2003
Initiative petition fight begins with offer to negotiate
State Sen. Stanley Rosenberg, who co-authored the bill and testified in favor of it during an Election Laws Committee hearing yesterday, said the legislation is designed to curb abuse of the state's referendum process.
"People are manipulating the process," the Amherst Democrat said. "The initiative process was never intended to be used so aggressively. It's not supposed to be an everyday tool for everyday legislation, and that's the way it is becoming."
But the bill's critics, including Common Cause of Massachusetts and Citizens for Limited
Taxation, claim the state's laws governing initiative petitions already are among the toughest in the nation....
CLT Executive Director Barbara Anderson said the measure is intended to "kill" the initiative petition process.
"The system works just fine the way it is," she said. "They're trying to take away the last element of grass-roots participation in the political process. They're going to push even more of us into paying professional petitioners."
...
[State Sen. Richard] Moore rejected the notion that the measure would block grass-roots groups' access to the ballot.
"If it's something that people really want, they won't have any trouble getting the signatures," he said.
The MetroWest Daily News
Friday, April 11, 2003
Ballot questions could get tougher
Legislation making it harder for citizens to make laws through ballot initiatives was vilified Thursday by the state's top election official as "an attack on the rights of voters."
Supporters of the bill, however, say true grassroots movements have been replaced by out-of-state millionaires who buy their way onto the ballot, and point to the English-immersion law that voters approved last fall.
"Direct democracy was put in place 100 years ago because people were frustrated," said the bill's chief sponsor, Sen. Stanley Rosenberg, D-Amherst. "I think the Legislature is now much more responsible than they're given credit for."
...
"Make no mistake about it, this legislation is an attack on the rights of voters in Massachusetts," Secretary of State William Galvin said.
Driving up the number of signatures would make it more likely that groups would hire professional firms the opposite of what is intended by the legislation, Galvin said. Taking power away from voters, he said, is "absurd, at best misguided."
Both Galvin and Peter Sacks, a state assistant attorney general, said limits on signature gatherers may violate First Amendment rights.
Associated Press
Friday, April 11, 2003
Proposed ballot law changes derided
The Legislature should reject proposed changes that would make it more difficult for grass-roots organizations to make law via the ballot box....
As we have said before, the right of initiative petition, established in 1917, was not intended to usurp Legislative prerogatives and certainly not to establish an ad hoc People's Legislature. It was intended to be used sparingly, empowering the electorate to make laws when elected representatives refuse to act.
That right must not be abridged.
A Telegram & Gazette editorial
Thursday, April 10, 2003
Endangered right
Proposals would undermine initiative petition
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
Yesterday's hearing on S-362 and S-363 -- state Sen.
Stanley Rosenberg's proposed constitutional amendment that would
eviscerate the citizens initiative petition right -- before the
Committee on Election Laws started off badly. It didn't begin until 10:30 and
the committee chairman's first order of business was to announce that
despite the late start the hearing would end at noon, as Finneran's
House Democrats needed Room A1 for their caucus -- so everyone would
need to keep their remarks short, no more than three minutes.
After hearing from the bills sponsors, Sen. Stanley Rosenberg (D-Amherst) and Rep. Robert Spellane (D-Worcester),
there was only an hour left before the announced deadline. After
Secretary of State William Galvin and Assistant Attorney General Peter
Saks completed their spirited defense of the current initiative
process, there was only 20 minutes remaining.
CLT decided we'd stage a protest sit-in if necessary.
Fortunately it didn't come to that. Committee Senate
Chairman Brian Joyce announced that the hearing would adjourn and move
down to the Gardner Auditorium, where testimony would continue.
Denials from the sponsors that their proposal is intended to kill the initiative petition process were asserted over and
over. "There's no hidden agenda or bias or intent to thwart the will of the
voter" Sen. Rosenberg assured the committee.
"Well now we know where 'Baghdad Bob' has
resurfaced," I whispered to Barbara.
Sen. Rosenberg, in his opening remarks, strenuously
asserted that he was not influenced by any outside organizations, as
some have alleged, like the Massachusetts Teachers Association; that he
met with no special interest groups before drafting his legislation.
Ironically, the first person to testify in support of it
(right after Barbara testified first against it) was Arlene Issacson, lobbyist
for the Massachusetts Teachers Association. Just a coincidence, I guess.
Some of you might remember Harold Hubschman of
SpoonWorks. He, along with Doug Barth, was one of the original
advocates of the Free The Pike petition drive to rid the Mass. Pike of
tolls; you may have helped as a volunteer to get their signatures.
Harold was also a CLT member for a couple of years. Then he started up a
paid petitioner company, and now he's supporting the evisceration of the
initiative petition process ... which of course would force everyone
to rely more heavily on paid petitioners to qualify for the ballot.
While arguing with him before the hearing, I couldn't
help but recall that old joke about the guy who asked a woman if she'd sleep with him for 2 million
dollars. She said yes, then he asked if she'd do it for $2. She snapped
back "what do you think I am!" He replied, "We've established what you
are madam, now I'm merely trying to determine your price."
It was amazing to realize just how ignorant most of
the members on the committee were about the logistics of an initiative
petition drive. What seemed to most stun them was learning yesterday of
the state Supreme Judicial Court's ruling on "pristine"
petition forms and entire sheets of signatures being tossed out because
of a "stray mark." They wanted to know if correcting this
would require a constitutional amendment or could be done with a
statute, and queried Assistant AG Peter Sacks. He agreed to look into it
and later inform the committee.
But we had an even better expert available to answer
the committee's question, CLT member David Hudson of Marlboro. David was
one of the drafters and original signers of the Fair Ballot Access Law
that was approved by the voters in 1990, which created the law later misinterpreted
by the SJC.
When David testified, he accused the SJC of a lying
in its interpretation of the law's language. We do recall that the court
blew it badly and had its facts leading up to its decision all wrong.
The point is, the court's determination was based on David's initiative
petition, and any statute can be easily amended by the Legislature (eg.,
our income tax rollback) ... if it is so inclined.
And it just might be, since it was pointed out to the
committee that the "stray marks" decision also affects
signatures on their candidacy nomination papers.
David has proposed amending legislation in the past,
though it has been ignored. But watch for this amendment to be included
in Rosenberg's bill as a hopeful "silver bullet" in an attempt
to buy off opposition.
Another telling event came when the chairman read
letters of support for Rosenberg's bills from legislators who were not in
attendance. Incredibly, several of those letters were from members of
the committee itself, who hadn't bothered to show up to hear opponents'
testimony (of the 18 members only 8 attended, at various times).
Couldn't they even perpetuate the idea that committee hearings mean
something, that members actually listen to both sides before making a decision. This
was an arrogant display of "let's not confuse me with facts."
CLT members Richard Hoover of Watertown and Len Mead
of Westboro also attended. Len intended to testify, but had to leave
before his turn came up.
There is so much more news to report today, about the
push in the House to increase the auto excise tax, Finneran's slam-dunk
committee vote for more leadership pay raises, and the CLT voluntary tax
check-off. I'll catch up on that tomorrow, but in the meantime,
get Howie Carr's column in today's Boston Herald, "Taxachusetts liberals show talk is cheap,"
and don't miss the Boston Globe's editorial attack on the check-off,
"A collective duty" ("We certainly applaud those
individuals whose compassion has led them to volunteer extra tax
payments," it says. "But
we do not recommend it"!)
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Chip
Ford |
State House News Service
Thursday, April 10, 2003
Initiative petition fight begins with offer to negotiate
By Helen Woodman
Authors of a major overhaul of the system by which voters take their own initiatives to the ballot said Thursday they are willing to rewrite their proposal in the wake of legal concerns and widespread opposition.
Before the Election Laws Committee is a call for the first major revision in the initiative petition process in more than 50 years. Its sponsors - Sen. Stanley Rosenberg (D-Amherst) and Rep. Robert Spellane (D-Worcester) - said the change is needed to prevent what has become a "manipulation" of the process by "wealthy special interests."
A broad and surprising coalition of groups who use the process to pose radically different questions to voters has formed to oppose what the activists call an outright attack on the initiative petition process and the right of voters to go to the ballot when they believe legislators are unresponsive.
Two pending bills make significant changes in the system. In addition to raising the number of signatures needed to get a question onto the ballot, they also impose stricter financial reporting requirements on those for and against any question, change the method for crafting explanations of the question for voters, and impose restrictions on those who collect signatures.
"I don't think the system is fundamentally broken," said Rosenberg. "I have no hostility toward direct democracy." But at a time when groups are increasingly taking their issues to the ballot rather than the Legislature, and are also resorting to paid signature-gathering companies and often to out-of state interests, "the process can be manipulated by wealthy interest groups," he said.
And if the state does not return to the original intended standard for the number of signatures, said the Amherst senator who once chaired the Election Laws Committee, the state could end up like California and Oregon, where 30 questions sometimes appear on the ballot and voter information booklets can grow to the size of city phone books.
Rosenberg was armed with results of a National Council of State Legislatures survey of the 24 states that allow petitions from the people. The average number of signatures needed in those states to take a constitutional amendment to the ballot is 9 percent of registered voters, he said, and 7 percent is needed to place a proposed statutory change there. In Massachusetts, sponsors need signatures equal to 3 percent of those who actually voted in the last gubernatorial race and that translates, Rosenberg said, to just 1.4 percent of registered voters for either a constitutional or statutory change.
He said that at a time when the number of registered voters has grown significantly but fewer and fewer of them go to the polls, the number of required signatures should be increased to the standard intended when the process was established.
In 1950, 70,000 signatures were needed, compared to the 57,100 required in 2002.
Secretary of State William Galvin told the lawmakers that 65,825 certified signatures will be required to qualify for the ballot during the next two election cycles, and that if the
Rosenberg/Spellane plan were in place, 110,000 would be needed to make a change in a law and 119,000 to alter the constitution.
"This legislation is an attack on the rights of Massachusetts voters," Galvin said.
Provisions to prevent gatherers from collecting for more than one petition violates their First Amendment rights and would be deemed unconstitutional, Galvin said. And having a five-member committee, with three of them appointed by the governor, write a summary of any question interjects politics into the system.
"It's a bad, bad piece of legislation," said Galvin. He did offer some praise for provisions to increase reporting requirements on contributors to ballot campaigns. That language does address "legitimate concerns about money in the process," he said.
Rosenberg insisted that the bill is just a draft. "There's plenty of time to redraft it. We acknowledge that there are some mistakes, so let's fix them. There's no hidden agenda or bias or intent to thwart the will of the voter."
In exchange for the requirement for more signatures, the bill would also give those collecting them another two months for the task. But veteran signature gatherer Barbara Anderson said that would just make more work for city and town clerks who have to certify the names.
"And we don't want an extra two months," said Anderson in an interview - especially during July and August, when both those signing and those collecting are more interested in vacationing.
Harold Hubschman of SpoonWorks, a Brookline firm that has been hired in the past to collect signatures, said he'd welcome the opportunity to collect signatures during the warm weather and when people tend to be more relaxed. He also commented in an interview about the proposed ban on collecting names for two causes at the same time. "That's just an annoyance. All I'd have to do is set up multiple companies."
"Some things it does are good, some are bad," said Hubschman of the entire bill.
Joining Anderson's Citizens for Limited Taxation in the Coalition to Protect Citizen Initiatives are: Common Cause of Massachusetts,
MASSPIRG, CPPAX, Mass Voters for Clean Elections, Grey 2K USA, and the Sierra Club of Massachusetts.
The Election Laws Committee has an Apr. 23 deadline for reporting out proposed constitutional amendments.
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The MetroWest Daily News
Friday, April 11, 2003
Ballot questions could get tougher
By Michael Kunzelman
A local legislator hopes to give his fellow lawmakers more time in office, make it harder to put state referendum questions on the ballot and grant the governor more power in case of terror attacks.
A bill co-sponsored by state Sen. Richard Moore, D-Uxbridge, would require sponsors of initiative petitions to collect at least 110,000 signatures for a proposed change in a law and 119,000 signatures for a proposed constitutional amendment.
Under the current law, sponsors of both types of initiatives only have to gather 65,825 signatures this year.
The measure also would impose limits on paid signature-gatherers and would set stricter financial reporting requirements for backers of ballot initiatives.
Moore also sponsored two other measures that were heard by the Election Laws Committee yesterday, including increasing the terms for state senators and state representatives from two to four years.
"I hear from so many people who say they can't believe we only serve two-year terms," Moore said.
Moore said lawmakers are barely a year into a term before they have to hit the campaign trail again.
"They don't have as much time to do the job they were elected to do," he said.
Thirty-one states have four-year terms for senators and/or House members, according to Moore.
But only four states - Alabama, Lousiana, Mississippi and Maryland - have four-year terms for both senators and representatives, said Common Cause Executive Director Pamela Wilmot.
"We don't need less elections in Massachusetts. We need more," Wilmot said, citing a Common Cause report that Massachusetts ranks next to last in the number of contested legislative races.
"The hallmark of democracy is elections," she added. "We need elections to make legislators more responsive to the public."
Moore also sponsored a bill that would allow the governor to fill the Legislature with emergency appointments in the event of a terrorist attack or a natural disaster at the State House.
If more than one-third of the seats in either the House or Senate are vacant in the wake of an attack or disaster, the governor would be authorized to fill posts with someone from the same political party who lives in each district.
Moore said the bill is patterned after federal legislation geared toward responding to a terrorist attack on Capitol Hill.
But it was the plan to raise the legal bar that initiative petitions have to clear to qualify for the ballot that pitted grass-roots advocates against lawmakers.
State Sen. Stanley Rosenberg, who co-authored the bill and testified in favor of it during an Election Laws Committee hearing yesterday, said the legislation is designed to curb abuse of the state's referendum process.
"People are manipulating the process," the Amherst Democrat said. "The initiative process was never intended to be used so aggressively. It's not supposed to be an everyday tool for everyday legislation, and that's the way it is becoming."
But the bill's critics, including Common Cause of Massachusetts and Citizens for Limited Taxation, claim the state's laws governing initiative petitions already are among the toughest in the nation.
"You have to get a lot of signatures in a very short period of time," said Wilmot.
Ballot initiatives are an important check and balance on the Legislature's power to make laws, Wilmot added.
"Many legislators are opposed to the legislative process because it restricts their unfettered ability to make policy, and that's exactly why we need it," she said.
CLT Executive Director Barbara Anderson said the measure is intended to "kill" the initiative petition process.
"The system works just fine the way it is," she said. "They're trying to take away the last element of grass-roots participation in the political process. They're going to push even more of us into paying professional petitioners."
Secretary of State William Galvin testified against Rosenberg's bill during the hearing.
"It's an obvious effort to restrict voters' rights," he said later during an interview. "It's a bad idea... (The bill's sponsors) are addressing a problem that isn't a problem."
The bill represents the first major effort to overhaul the petition process in 50 years.
Moore rejected the notion that the measure would block grass-roots groups' access to the ballot.
"If it's something that people really want, they won't have any trouble getting the signatures," he said.
Moore said grass-roots groups are rarely the driving force behind the petitions that make it onto the ballot.
"They're almost invariably funded by special interests that aren't able to get their way through the legislative process," he added.
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Associated Press
Friday, April 11, 2003
Proposed ballot law changes derided
By Ken Maguire
Legislation making it harder for citizens to make laws through ballot initiatives was vilified Thursday by the state's top election official as "an attack on the rights of voters."
Supporters of the bill, however, say true grassroots movements have been replaced by out-of-state millionaires who buy their way onto the ballot, and point to the English-immersion law that voters approved last fall.
"Direct democracy was put in place 100 years ago because people were frustrated," said the bill's chief sponsor, Sen. Stanley Rosenberg, D-Amherst. "I think the Legislature is now much more responsible than they're given credit for."
Rosenberg's proposals, debated at an Election Laws Committee hearing, would increase by 50 percent the number of voter signatures required the get a question on the ballot. It would also require signatures from each of the state's 10 congressional districts.
Groups backing or opposing ballot questions would face tougher financial reporting guidelines, and a new commission would create strict rules for signature gatherers, under Rosenberg's two proposals.
"Make no mistake about it, this legislation is an attack on the rights of voters in Massachusetts," Secretary of State William Galvin said.
Driving up the number of signatures would make it more likely that groups would hire professional firms the opposite of what is intended by the legislation, Galvin said. Taking power away from voters, he said, is "absurd, at best misguided."
Both Galvin and Peter Sacks, a state assistant attorney general, said limits on signature gatherers may violate First Amendment rights.
The committee did not vote Thursday. Its Chairman, Sen. Brian Joyce, D-Milton, said there is support for more financial reporting requirements, and that some changes would be reported out of committee, but not everything.
"It's unlikely, for example, that the committee would have any interest in supporting a provision which the attorney general's office advises is unconstitutional," Joyce said.
Rosenberg said many voters didn't know the effect of Question Two, the English-immersion law that replaces multiyear bilingual education programs with all-English classes in public schools. California millionaire Ron Unz provided financial backing for the initiative, donating a half-million dollars. It passed 2-1 statewide, but lost in several of the cities most affected by it.
"They're using Massachusetts as a way to try to advance public policy nationally," Rosenberg said.
Opponents of the proposals include Citizens for Limited Taxation,
Masspirg, and Common Cause.
"The citizen initiative process is an essential tool for compelling the Legislature to address issues it can't or won't consider," said Pam Wilmot, director of Common Cause Massachusetts.
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The Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Thursday, April 10, 2003
A Telegram & Gazette editorial
Endangered right
Proposals would undermine initiative petition
The Legislature should reject proposed changes that would make it more difficult for grass-roots organizations to make law via the ballot box.
A Statehouse hearing on bills sponsored by state Sen. Stanley C. Rosenberg of Northampton and Rep. Robert P. Spellane of Worcester is scheduled today. The legislation would require groups to gather the signatures of 2.5 percent of registered voters to place on the ballot a proposal to change a state law - a daunting 99,316 signatures instead of the current 65,825. Proposed constitutional changes would need signatures from 3 percent of registered voters, about 119,180 signatures.
The lawmakers' stated intent is worthy: to counterbalance the influence of well-heeled interests, often from out of state, in initiative campaigns. Moreover, the Legislature's hostility to petition drives funded by outsiders is understandable and, to some extent, we share lawmakers' concern.
However, the proposed changes are the wrong way to address them. The new requirements wouldn't faze a Ron Unz - the California billionaire who bankrolled the English immersion petition drive - and his army of signature collectors. But the changes would place a huge burden on grass-roots movements that depend largely on volunteers.
As we have said before, the right of initiative petition, established in 1917, was not intended to usurp Legislative prerogatives and certainly not to establish an ad hoc People's Legislature. It was intended to be used sparingly, empowering the electorate to make laws when elected representatives refuse to act.
That right must not be abridged.
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