Initiative

In a quick morning canvas of signature gatherers and local coordinators in California, none of the half-dozen people I checked with around the state has been hired to do the Arnold recall as yet. This is the slow season for the signature gathering game. Many of California's gatherers are working on local initiative or referendum petitions -- there's a significant one in Stockton, and several in Southern California -- or are out of state. The good news for supporters of recalling Arnold is that it wouldn't be hard to hire signature gatherers fast, and with little else on the street, the price wouldn't be particularly high.

Jeff Peckman, the author of the municipal ballot initiative to establish an extraterrestrial commission in Denver, has revised his initiative. The commission will have seven members, not 11, and members no longer have to be Denver residents. In the interests of recruiting those with UFO expertise, the ET commissioners can be from "anywhere in the universe." Peckman tells the Rocky Mountain News: "We've set the bar higher for the people that would be on the commission." Yes, but it says here it's not enough. Wouldn't limiting the commission to just "people" deprive us of alien expertise. Perhaps another revision is in order, Mr. Peckman.

Here's the latest in the signature gathering mess that has consumed Arizona, knocking initiatives on the ballot that appeared to have qualified: a judge has blocked state and county officials from printing the November ballots.

The order came as a result of a legal challenge to the state's decision to remove Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action initiative from the ballot. The Initiative's sponsors have gone to court, arguing that some signatures declared invalid are in fact valid. The judge hearing that case issued the order, saying that Connerly's backers deserved the chance to make their case that the initiative should be restored to the ballot.

The most fundamental problem for California initiative sponsors is: how to get the public's attention? The ballot is typically crowded each cycle with several complicated measures. (13 so far this November). The print media is in sharp decline, with fewer reporters and less space to cover such measures. And TV news is a cesspool of crime and celebrity.

What to do? Many sponsors have fixed on the same strategy: endorsements from Hollywood celebrities. And unlike in candidate campaigns, where the candidate has to lead the campaign, the celebrity endorsers often become the public face, appearing in ads and at press conferences. In many cases, the campaigns trade on the vast public knowledge about the celebrity and even their troubles -- diseases, addictions, etc. -- in  way that matches the message of the campaign. In a November election, the celebrity season usually begins about Labor Day, when initiative campaigns typically begin public events and TV advertising.

The initiative process tends to be popular, and attempts to restrict it tend to be unpopular. But an Arizona ballot initiative to restrict the power of the initiative might have appeared at the right time. Signature gathering in that state is an ongoing scandal, with several measures being knocked off the ballot because so many signatures turned out to be invalid.

The initiative, which qualified for the ballot late last week, would require that any initiative that requires new spending or taxes would have to receive not just a majority of all people voting but a majority of all registered voters before taking effect. That sets a high bar. But it may be a good idea. As my New America colleague Mark Paul has noted, voter-approved spending via initiative has become a major factor in California's budget troubles.

The initiative would ban adoption by all unmarried couples but is aimed at same-sex couples, its supporters acknowledge. The AP has more details here. The initiative also would bar adoption by legally married same-sex couples, because Arkansas does not recognize such marriages. Look for Wal-Mart and other major Arkansas companies to fight this on the grounds that it will prevent them from recruiting employees who happen to be gay and have children.

The latest victim of Arizona's signature gathering mess is Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action initiative there. Connerly's effort there submitted a number of signatures well over the minimum required for qualification, but the state and counties found so many signatures to be invalid that it has been struck from the November ballot. Connerly is telling the Arizona press that he's not giving up--he's going to show the signatures are valid.

This is the third of five states in which Connerly's organization sponsored anti-affirmative action measures but failed to qualify them for the ballot. In each state, Connerly and his organization have blamed others -- state officials, opponents doing blocking campaigns, or even state laws. But it may be time to regroup and develop a better approach to signature gathering. Connerly is 2 for 5 this year. Batting .400 is good in baseball, but embarssing bad when you've got the funding and are qualifying measures for the ballot. One wonders when Connerly's financial backers will begin to complain that he is wasting their money.

A local ballot initiative in San Francisco is being sold as protecting prostitutes. But Debra Saunders at the Chronicle argues that it would protect pimps instead.

Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage and a leading strategist among opponents of same-sex marriage, writes in Human Events that Calif. Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown's change of the Prop 8 ballot title to say the initiative would "eliminate" the right of same-sex marriage has a "silver lining."

That silver lining is "clarity. Only one marriage amendment has ever been defeated, and that happened in Arizona in 2006. Polls taken after the election suggest that the ballot language confused voters about whether a “yes” or a “no” vote protected marriage as one man and one woman." Her side -- the Prop 8 supporters -- had fought the initiative in court.

She also sees advantage in the "No on Prop 8" strategy of emphasizing the fact that the passage of Prop 8 could threaten the marriages of gay couples that are currently taking place. She writes: "For better or for worse, Jerry Brown’s ballot language, along with the Supreme Court decision, the highly publicized flood of same-sex unions, and even several planned celebrity same-sex unions slated for October, locks anti-Prop. 8 opponents into a messaging strategy that has never worked for them in any other state marriage amendment battle: Focus relentless attention on the same-sex couples and the rights they stand to lose. It’s a risky gamble with an uncertain payoff this November for gay marriage advocates."

Arizona's direct democracy is a mess. Signature gathering firms there are struggling to get valid signatures on initiative petitions. Three measures were knocked off the ballot because of low validity rates.

Now one of those initiatives -- a measure that would preemptively bar legislation such as that passed in Massachusetts (and pursued in California) for expanded health care coverage -- has received new life. A superior court judge ruled that some signatures marked invalid were, in fact, valid. When the new tally from a random sample was calculated, the initiative, Prop 101, had enough signatures to make the ballot, the Arizona Daily Star reports. This may not be the last world. Opponents could appeal.