Colorado

I'll be out of pocket the rest of Thursday--in transit...

Ralph Nader's challenge to an Arizona law prohibiting non-residents from collecting signatures on presidential petitions has been scheduled for an April 15 hearing before the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

RENEWABLE INITIATIVES: From a small paper in Missouri, a pretty good overview of renewable energy standards in different states, with some attention to those states that have imposed these by ballot initiative.

STILL NOTHING FROM  COLORADO MEETING: Rocky Mountain News says the governor's attempt to head off labor-business initiative war didn't go well. And here's more evidence that the ill will is building.

SAN DIEGO PORT: Opposition mounts to a San Diego ballot measure that could lead to commercial development inside that city's struggling port.

CONNERLY SURRENDER: Connerly gives up in Oklahoma. It was one of five states where he had sponsored measures opposing affirmative action. They didn't collect enough signatures, they tell the Tulsa World. This is a major logistical screw-up by Connerly and his backers; signatures had been turned in in December. The backers had more time to gather signatures, but appear to have done a poor job in collecting valid signatures and in calculating how many they needed.

WILL THE SUNSHINE IN? Margot Roosevelt of the LA Times takes a thorough look at an alternative energy ballot initiative in California, sponsored by the University of Phoenix founder. The solar energy industry is skeptical.

COORS SIGHTING: The Rocky Mountain News reports on Monday's meeting between backers of a "right-to-work" initiative in California and Gov. Bill Ritter. No news from the meetings--lips were tight afterward, and no agreements have been reached. Ritter clearly would like labor and business groups to slow down their move towards a multi-initiative war. The News piece focuses on former Schwarzenegger aide, Jonathan Coors. And yes, he is one of those Coors.

There are signs that Colorado is headed towards the kind of Labor vs. Business Ballot Initiative Super Bowl that Californians experienced during the special election of 2005. It seems that every few weeks, one side or the other ups the ante by filing new initiatives aimed at the prerogatives of the other. Colorado's governor has called a meeting for Monday in an effort to head off warfare, but don't bet it on him succeeding. Ballot initiatives, once filed, take on lives of their own. A whole industry of people who profit from the measures -- and interest groups who like the measures -- soon seize on viable initiatives. In many cases, the initiative's original sponsors can change their mind and sue for peace -- but it doesn't matter. Here's a round-up of headlines from over the past couple days.

RIGHT TO WORK SUMMIT: The Rocky Mountain News has this report on Monday's scheduled meeting between the governor and advocates for a ballot initiative that would make Colorado a "right-to-work state." California cognoscenti will recognize the name of Jonathan Coors, a former aide to Gov. Schwarzenegger.

UPDATED APRIL 4 After two nights of contacting gatherers and reading initiatives from all over the country (AND SOME EXCELLENT CORRECTIONS ON ARKANSAS AND MICHIGAN FROM Ballotpedia), here's my report on what's "on the street" and circulating in this great democratic land of ours. Please let me know if you think I'm missing important measures. For a more progressive take and focus, you can look at the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center's issues map.

NYT MISSES THE POINT IN COLORADO: The New York Times weighs in on the Colorado ballot initiative that would make corporate executives criminally responsible if their companies break the law. The Times focuses on the angry Qwest employees who are backing the measure, and misses the larger context. The initiative is part of a union-business battle that encompasses other measures in the state. The center of the fight is a right-to-work initiative, which has been countered by five recent initiatives filed by the United Food and Commercial Workers, best known for representing the people working in grocery stores.

RIGHT TO DIE ON THE STREET: Well, not yet. But the attacks have begun on the latest assisted suicide initiative from ex-Governor Booth Gardner. Petition gatherers, many from California, are already on the street gathering signatures. Anyone out there know the price?

DOG DEBATE: A debate breaks out over how many workers might be affected if a dog-track measure doesn't pass in Massachusetts.

In Colorado, state legislators are trying to head off a possible Humane Society ballot initiative that would require veal calves and pregnant pigs to be kept in housing that allows them to stand up and turn around.

Why the desperation to stop the Humane Society? Because when the society goes to the ballot, it usually wins.

No organization has a better record at the ballot than the Humane Society of the United States, the true champion of direct democracy. Between 1990 and 2006, HSUS won more than two-thirds of its ballot measure campaigns. (26 out of 38). In most of those efforts, the Humane Society has been on the "yes" side, and "yes" campaigns are far harder to win than "no" campaigns. (About two-thirds of ballot initiatives lose). At the ballot, the Humane Society successfully has sought to ban dove hunting, horse slaughter, cockfighting, and confinement of animals.

DOING FOR CALIFORNIA HEALTH WHAT THEY DID FOR CALIFORNIA CARS: Advocate Harvey Rosenfeld, author of 1988's Prop. 103 initiative on car insurance, and his organization, the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumers Rights, is putting together an initiative on health care that aimed for the 2010, Capitol Weekly reports. It's a complicated measure and not yet fully cooked. But the insurance commissioner -- a post that has been heavily politicized (and a source of scandal in California in recent decades) -- would get new powers to oversee HMOs and regulate insurance and co-pays. It also would be easier to sue, which shouldn't surprise anyone. Rosenfeld is close to the trial lawyers. 

TOO BIG A CONSTITUTION: One characteristic of states that have the initiative and use it often -- California, Oregon, Colorado -- is that they have very long constitutions. The people have the right to add to and change the constitution and so they do. (It goes with the territory; Switzerland, birthplace of direct democracy, has one of the longest constitutions in the world.) In Colorado, a special legislative committee is studying the state constitution to see if it can be cleaned up a bit. Face the State, a Colorado news and opinon web site, takes a look at the clean-up effort, and is skeptical.

Well, not quite a national initiative. (Establishing such an initiative remains the cause of former Democratic presidential candidate, former Alaska Senator and former neighbor of your Blockbuster blogger Mike Gravel, but that’s a story for another day).

But five states -- Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma -- are expected to vote this fall on the same ballot initiative: a measure banning affirmative action in public schools and other government projects. (They’ve got the signatures in Oklahoma, but not yet in the other four states)

Such multi-state initiatives have become a common political tactic -- and a big moneymaker for those in the blockbuster democracy biz. Opponents of same sex marriage and eminent domain rights have fielded quasi-national initiatives by qualifying the same measure in multiple states. Proponents of legislative term limits have done the same.