Signatures

Ben Austin had the backing of LA's rulers. But he had the wrong signatures. Capitol Weekly has the story.

UPDATE: The consultant Austin says he hired says she was never in fact hired by Austin. Confused? The explanation is here.

After multiple delays, a hearing was held Nov. 18 to decide whether U.S. Term Limits founder Paul Jacob and two veteran political pros who were helping him qualify an initiative in Oklahoma, Susan Johnson and Rick Carpenter, should stand trial on charges that they conspired to bring out-of-state signature gatherers to the state. But the hearing didn't conclude. It has been postponed until early 2009.

The case is based on a law barring out of state signature gatherers. The law is almost certainly unconstitutional, and it's likely a matter of time before charges against the three -- dubbed the Oklahoma 3 by their supporters -- are dropped. More here.

I'm going to need remedial math work. A correction to my post on basics: I was right about the required number of signatures being 12 percent of the number of votes cast in most recent election. But when I made a mathematical error in calculating that. The correct standard is 1,041,530 signatures, according to the Secretary of State's office. That's still very doable, and likely to be not that much more costly than a ballot initiative. One note: proponents of a recall will want to get at least 1.5 million signatures so they have a cushion. Typically, about 30 percent of signatures are found to be invalid for one reason or another. But with no other measures on the ballot, the recall should be able to qualify for less than $2 per signature -- so the total cost of qualification ought to be less than $3 million.

For more on recall procedures, the secretary of state's handbook is here.

With a per signature price increase to $2.25 and other measures already qualifying, the redistricting initiative, backed by Gov. Schwarzenegger, had a very good week on the streets of California. So good that signature gatherers were told over the weekend to do a "final turn in" of their signatures by tonight. This also suggests there was a ton of hoarding going on two weeks ago--that is, gatherers were holding back signatures in hopes that the price would go up. Rick Claussen, consultant to the effort, says this morning that the sponsors expect to have more than 1.1 million signatures by the end of this week--more than a week earlier than the previous plan. In fact, with redistricting off the street, there is little paying work left in California at the moment. Many of the top gatherers and coordinators are leaving to work on initiatives in other states.

Here's an up-to-the-minute report from the streets of California: Gov. Schwarzenegger's redistricting ballot initiative appears to be struggling to attract enough signatures on the street, but it's unclear if the problem is lack of voter interest, hoarding by signature gatherers expecting a price increase, or some combination of the two.

This weekend, gatherers were told to turn in the current petitions they have for redistricting, three gatherers told me this afternoon. Signatures on these are worth $2 per signature. The idea behind the turn-in is to fight hoarding. (Unless you issue new versions of a petition -- either with a different letter on the sheet or in a different color paper, gatherers will hold onto signatures until sponsors raise the per-signature price) A new version of the redistricting petition -- same initiative but different color paper -- will be issued this week. Signatures on that new version will be paying $2.25 a signature, the gatherers have been told. The price increase suggests that the redistricting initiative is still seriously short of signatures, and time is running short to get the measure qualified for the November ballot.

In contrast, the anti-same sex marriage initiative appears to have enough signatures, according to gatherers. Sponsors of that initiative have ordered a "final turn in" for tonight. Those sigs are worth $1.40 or $1.50 per signature. Initiatives on victims rights ($2) and alternative fuels ($1.90) continue to circulate.

Think Florida has made a mess out of presidential politics in this era? The state’s record is even worse when it comes to direct democracy. Florida continues to take legislative and regulatory steps that undermine the public’s right to make and reverse laws.

In this excellent piece from the Daytona Beach paper, environmental activist John Hedrick explains how Florida has set the deadline for turning in initiative petitions and for certifying signatures for the EXACT SAME DAY. Since signatures don’t count themselves, this ensures administrative chaos -- and worse. To exploit the last minute crunch of signature gathering, some groups have taken to deluging the Secretary of State’s office with signatures at the deadline to make it more difficult to count the signatures on initiatives they don’t like.