Humane Society

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW TO RUN A BALLOT MEASURE CAMPAIGN.... Read this post from Wayne Pacelle, of the Humane Society of the United States, at California Majority Report. 

ANOTHER CALIFORNIA PARCEL TAX: One of the handful of taxes California cities can raise is the parcel tax. With the state budget in crisis, more and more city governments are asking the voters to endorse parcel tax hikes to pay for police officers. The latest city to make the ask is Oakland.

SICK IN OHIO? An Ohio ballot initiative, currently on the street, would require companies to provide seven days of paid sick leave. But Gov. Ted Strickland may be trying to forge a compromise before the initiative reaches the ballot, according to a leading legislator.

THE DOGS HAVE IT: A measure to ban greyhound racing in Massachusetts appears to have enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot.

This is according to the Sacramento Bee. Consultants are saying this could be a blockbuster.

CRACKDOWN ON SIGNATURE GATHERERS? The Contra Costa Times has this item in praise of a bill that will attempt to hold initiative sponsors liable for misstatements and misrepresentations made by signature gatherers. One wonders if the sponsor has met any signature gatherers, who tend to be, shall we say, independent-minded. They often are folks who, because of their life choices, like to be paid in cash. How does one police these misrepresentations? Who decides? This bill may pass, but it seems like an outrageous criminalization of political speech that will produce nothing more than litigation.

NO EMERGING NATIONAL TREND: Those Nevada ballot initiatives -- one putting more scrutiny on government contracting, the other banning taxpayer funds from being used for lobbying -- have been withdrawn by their conservative backers. Those backers blame legal challenges by labor for slowing down qualification of the measures.

SARASOTA COUNTY: Florida is billed as a model for how to use ballot initiatives to control growth.

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.