Medical Marijuana

That's the argument of this piece in the Michigan Messenger. An initiative to legalize marijuana for medical purposes should be on the November ballot.

MASSACHUSETTS DOGS: Massachusetts gives the legislature the chance to act on initiative proposals before they head to the ballot. A measure to ban dog racing in the state, which would close two tracks (including, I believe, the one you see Minnie Driver and Matt Damon visit during a date in Good Will Hunting), did not get the approval of a state panel, so it appears headed for the November ballot.

COLORADO SPEAKER TAKING IT TO THE PEOPLE: The Democratic speaker of Colorado's House says his proposal to alter the state's constitution rules on budgeting has no chance of passing the legislature, so he's going to qualify an initiative for the ballot. The proposal would undo parts of the state's voter-approved Taxpayer Bill of Rights, allowing the state to keep revenue above previous limits.

ANTI MARIJUANA INITIATIVE DROPPED: Organizers of an initiative to reverse Oregon's medical marijuana law have dropped the effort. Not enough time and money to get the signatures, the main sponsor tells Williamette Week.

MARYLAND SLOTS CONSENSUS: Labor and business groups are lining up behind a measure to legalize slot machines in Maryland to balance the budget.

REPUBLICANS GO AFTER GOVERNOR: This story from the Redding paper is worth a read for those who follow California politics. Republican politicians in the far north of the state sharply criticized Schwarzenegger's handling of the budget, during a public meeting late last week and: Sam Aanestad, a state senator, sounds particularly angry. He says that Schwarzenegger is sending mixed signals (though that's hardly a new charge, and accurate given the incredible diversity of his administration and his management methods, which encourage internal arguments). But he goes even further by saying that Schwarzenegger does not have the state's best interests at heart. "He's much more interested in the governor's future than in Californians'. He's got two more years. He can slide through and become a senator," Aanestad said.

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS: My post Friday on Gov. Schwarzenegger's personal spending on initiatives should have said that his latest donations to the redistricting initiative come from his political committee, not his own pocket. As the Sacramento Bee correctly points out today.

DEPARTMENT OF MOON HOWLING: The Las Vegas Review & Journal takes a long look at one of the country's more important signature firms, National Voter Outreach and its CEO Rick Arnold. I've interviewed Arnold in his Carson City home, and found him to be one of the more thoughtful people in the petition trade, critical of its problems and clear-eyed about its limitations. This story is built heavily around criticism from the liberal/progressive Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which is quick to lable signature gathering as corrupt (at least in cases where it opposes the cause in question). There is a "shocked, shocked" quality to this criticism. The signature gathering business has plenty of problem workers, many of them poorly trained folks who, for lifestyle reasons, have taken a job that usually pays them in cash. But BISC and other critics invariably propopse to criminalize the process of gathering signatures, as in Oklahoma. In supporting these restrictions, liberals are hurting themselves, by establishing precedents restricting political speech that can be used by their political opponents. And such restrictions don't stop direct democracy. They merely slow it down, adding to the costs (and thus the influence of interest groups) that progressives love to denounce. The more you regulate, the more firms like National Voter Outreach will benefit.

As a regular feature, I'll provide updates measures as they qualify in California and around the country.

This weekend's qualifiers: Medical marijuana makes the ballot in Michigan. (Five cities already have municipal measures)... Ban on same sex marriage (and maybe civil unions) in Florida…