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	<title>referendums &#8211; CalWatchdog.com</title>
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		<title>Referendums on passed legislation gain steam</title>
		<link>https://calwatchdog.com/2015/07/18/referendums-on-passed-legislation-gain-steam-in-ca/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joel Fox]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 18 Jul 2015 12:00:40 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Breaking News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics and Elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tax increases]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SB277]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mandatory vaccination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[voter initiative]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[voter referendum]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ballot]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[referendums]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://calwatchdog.com/?p=81796</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Referendums on legislative actions may be making a comeback in California. Earlier this week, opponents of Senate Bill 277, the mandatory vaccination measure, began their quest to refer that legislative]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><div id="attachment_81797" style="width: 299px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://calwatchdog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/vote.jpg"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-81797" class="size-medium wp-image-81797" src="http://calwatchdog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/vote-289x220.jpg" alt="Denise Cross / flickr" width="289" height="220" srcset="https://calwatchdog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/vote-289x220.jpg 289w, https://calwatchdog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/vote.jpg 640w" sizes="(max-width: 289px) 100vw, 289px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-81797" class="wp-caption-text">Denise Cross / flickr</p></div></p>
<p>Referendums on legislative actions may be making a comeback in California.</p>
<p>Earlier this week, opponents of Senate Bill 277, the mandatory vaccination measure, began their quest to refer that legislative action to the voters for the November 2016 election. Already qualified to appear on that ballot is a referendum on banning single use plastic bags in the state.</p>
<p>Taking on legislative acts via direct democracy is not so common. The first obstacle is the short 90-day period allowed to gather the necessary signatures. Of course, with the low voter turnout in the last gubernatorial election, the number of signatures needed has dropped. Now, obtaining just 365,880 valid signatures will place a measure on the ballot.</p>
<p>While <a href="http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/referendum/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">49 referendums</a> made it to the California ballot between 1912 and the most recent general election in 2014, 34 of those referendums appeared on ballots prior to the end of World War II. If you dismiss the referendums dealing with Indian Gaming and all the money that supporters and opponents on that issue have to help qualify a measure, since 2002, only two referendums have qualified for the ballot &#8212; a health care measure in 2004 and a redistricting referendum in 2012.</p>
<p>Now, we could see two on the next ballot. Maybe more.</p>
<p>Elections analyst, Allan Hoffenblum of the <a href="http://www.californiatargetbook.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">California Target Book</a>, told the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-pc-referendum-drive-begins-against-vaccination-law-20150714-story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Los Angeles Times</a> he thinks the vaccination referendum could qualify. “It’s a minority of people but it’s a sizeable minority of people. I would be surprised if it didn’t qualify. There is a lot of intensity.” Hoffenblum said.</p>
<p>While the measure may qualify, it faces big obstacles to overturn the legislative action. Polls indicate support for mandatory vaccination of school children. The <a href="http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/survey/S_515MBS.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PPIC poll</a> in May found that 67 percent of all Californians and 65 percent of parents of public school children support the mandate. Furthermore, while passionate opponents of the law would be good foot soldiers in an effort to get the measure passed, there remains a question of how much money could be raised to deliver the message statewide.</p>
<p>And, while pharmaceutical companies have claimed a distance from the law, they could play a financial role in any ballot contest in support of the law.</p>
<p>In addition, there is the often difficult to understand requirement that if you are for the referendum but against the law you must vote &#8220;No.&#8221; The referendum essentially asks if you support the law passed by the legislature, &#8220;Yes&#8221; or &#8220;No.&#8221; The question is not whether you support the referendum. Voters can be confused.</p>
<p>Could other referendums come along?</p>
<p>Probably the most well-known referendum in California history was the battle over a peripheral canal. Voters overwhelmingly rejected the canal in June 1982. A proposal in the same vein, Gov. Jerry Brown’s push for Delta Tunnels, could face a referendum if legislation passed to move the tunnels plan forward. (There is already an initiative effort that would require a vote of the people on major projects like the tunnels that is in the works. If tunnel legislation becomes law before the initiative is voted upon, opponents of the tunnels may turn to a referendum.)</p>
<p>Then there is SB350 to cut 50 percent of all petroleum use by 2030. If passed this term, could opposing oil companies mount a referendum and ask voters if they agree?</p>
<p>Other major issues that could arise from the special sessions will not face referendums. If tax increases are passed by the legislature, they will become law without opponents having the opportunity to refer that action to voters.</p>
<p>Article 2, Section 9(a) of the state Constitution prohibits referendums &#8220;providing for tax levies or appropriations for usual current expenses of the state.&#8221;</p>
<p>Gov. Brown has previously indicated that he doesn’t plan to ask voters about a tax increase this time around, and the voters can’t use the referendum power to demand a vote on taxes.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
					
		
		
		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">81796</post-id>	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Fresno taxpayers object to misleading petition title and summary</title>
		<link>https://calwatchdog.com/2014/01/24/fresno-taxpayers-object-to-misleading-petition-title-and-summary/</link>
					<comments>https://calwatchdog.com/2014/01/24/fresno-taxpayers-object-to-misleading-petition-title-and-summary/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[John]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 24 Jan 2014 23:50:12 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Breaking News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics and Elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rights and Liberties]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ashley Swearengin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[City of Fresno]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[taxpayer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[water rate hikes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hardball]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[California Constitution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bruce Rudd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[direct democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Renena Smith]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fresno Bee]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Doug Vagim]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Hrabe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[petition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[referendums]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://calwatchdog.com/?p=58384</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[A group of Fresno taxpayers hoping to overturn the city&#8217;s recent water rate hike has filed a formal complaint accusing the city attorney of issuing a biased and misleading title]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>A group of Fresno taxpayers hoping to overturn the <a href="http://www.calnewsroom.com/2014/01/14/fresno-mayor-ashley-swearengin-raises-water-rates-then-sues-taxpayers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">city&#8217;s recent water rate hike</a> has filed a <a href="http://www.calnewsroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Fresno-Water-Petition-Improper-Title-Summary.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">formal complaint</a> accusing the city attorney of <a href="http://www.calnewsroom.com/2014/01/23/fresno-complies-with-court-order-issues-water-petition-title-summary/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">issuing a biased and misleading title and summary</a> for their referendum.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s the latest development in a bitter fight between the city and taxpayers. Last August, the city approved a controversial plan by <a href="http://johnhrabe.com/did-fresno-mayor-ashley-swearengin-break-the-law/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin</a> to double water rates in order to fund a $410 million upgrade to the city’s water system. But when a group of taxpayers led by former Fresno County Supervisor Doug Vagim objected to the plan, the city took the taxpayers to court in order to stop a referendum campaign.</p>
<p>Earlier this month, a state appeals court upheld a lower court ruling that ordered the city to fulfill its ministerial duties and issue a petition title and summary. Now the taxpayers say that the title and summary, as prepared by City Attorney Doug Sloan, are biased in favor of the water tax hike.</p>
<p>&#8220;Frankly, I don&#8217;t believe this Title and Summary filed by the Fresno City Attorney can be considered to represent an impartial statement of the purpose of the proposed measure,&#8221; <a href="http://www.calnewsroom.com/tag/fresno-county-supervisor-doug-vagim/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Vagim</a> said  &#8220;This text belongs in the con-argument side of the ballot&#8217;s voter guide for Measure W.&#8221;</p>
<p>This is the full text:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong><em>&#8220;Title: Initiative Measure To Repeal City of Fresno&#8217;s Four-Year Water Rate Plan And Related Water Fees&#8221;</em></strong></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>&#8220;Summary: A &#8216;yes&#8217; vote on this measure would repeal water rates to be charged over four years that the Fresno City Council adopted on August 15, 2013, and cause the rates to return to what the Council adopted in 2008. The City Council adopted the 2013 water rates to pay for increased costs to provide adequate water that is safe to drink. The increased costs are caused by changes in state and federal drinking water standards, depletion of ground water, costs of maintenance and repairs to old water pipes and other parts of the water system, and the necessity to build a surface water treatment plant. If the current rates are repealed, the City Council could impose higher rates again. However, it would delay the City&#8217;s work to repair and improve the water system.&#8221;</em></p>
<h3>Factual errors: Last water rate hike in 2010, not 2008</h3>
<p>Vagim points to state law, which requires the city attorney to issue an impartial analysis. The <a href="http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=elec&amp;group=09001-10000&amp;file=9050-9054" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Election Code</a> states:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>&#8220;In providing the ballot title, the city attorney shall give a true and impartial statement of the purpose of the proposed measure in such language that the ballot title shall neither be an argument, nor be likely to create prejudice, for or against the proposed measure.&#8221;</em></p>
<p>In the complaint letter submitted to the city attorney on Thursday, Vagim&#8217;s group cited factual errors in the title and summary, including the last time the city raised water rates. The petition summary references a water rate hike in 2008, when the last such increase passed the council in 2010.</p>
<p>&#8220;The prejudicial nature of this misstatement falsely informs voters that water rates have not been raised since 2008, when in fact rates were last increased in 2010,&#8221; the letter objecting to the petition summary states.</p>
<p>After five months of delays, <span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">the taxpayers say they&#8217;ll circulate the biased petition </span><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">rather than wait for another title and summary. </span></p>
<p>&#8220;Moreover, the City&#8217;s intentional, unreasonable and unlawful delay over the course of the last five (5) months has deprived my client of time to challenge the petition title and summary for petition circulating,&#8221; the complaint states.</p>
<p>If they can gather enough signatures, they&#8217;ll be looking for a revised <span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">title and summary before the election and could recoup legal fees and court costs in the process.</span></p>
<h3>Fresno City Attorney: &#8216;Title is fair, complete and complies with the law&#8217;</h3>
<p>The city attorney maintains that the title complies with the law. &#8220;We believe the title is fair, complete, and complies with the law,&#8221; said Sloan, Fresno&#8217;s City Attorney.</p>
<p>But the state&#8217;s leading taxpayer advocacy group contended otherwise. &#8220;The language is most certainly slanted,&#8221; said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. &#8220;But we have not yet determined whether it crosses the line from the perspective of potential litigation.&#8221;</p>
<p>Earlier this month, CalWatchdog.com <a href="calwatchdog.com/2014/01/15/fresno-mayor-obstructs-initiative-process-to-save-water-rate-hike/">reported </a>the story of the bully tactics by the City of Fresno in defense of <a href="http://johnhrabe.com/did-fresno-mayor-ashley-swearengin-break-the-law/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mayor Swearengin’s</a> water rate increases. Under Swearengin’s plan, the average <a href="http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/12/10/3659963/fresno-mayor-swearengin-makes.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">water bill would be doubled</a> to fund a $410 million upgrade to the city’s water system.</p>
<p>In September, a group of taxpayers, led by former Fresno County Supervisor Doug Vagim, organized a campaign to overturn the rate hikes. But the taxpayers were denied a title and summary for their petition. Without a title and summary, the group couldn’t collect the necessary signatures to get a referendum on the ballot.</p>
<h3>City of Fresno sues taxpayers</h3>
<p>Then the <a href="http://www.calnewsroom.com/2014/01/14/fresno-mayor-ashley-swearengin-raises-water-rates-then-sues-taxpayers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>city </em></a><a href="http://www.calnewsroom.com/2014/01/14/fresno-mayor-ashley-swearengin-raises-water-rates-then-sues-taxpayers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em style="line-height: 1.5em;">sued the taxpayers </em></a>in an effort to stall the petition from reaching the 2014 ballot. In late November, a Superior Court sided with taxpayers and ordered the city attorney to issue the title and summary. Instead of compiling with the court order, the city filed a notice of appeal, which stayed the court’s order, as part of a strategy to run out the clock on the initiative.</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;">The city of Fresno is facing major financial problems after years of fiscal mismanagement and irresponsible spending. It owes $3.4 million per year in annual construction bond payments for a city-owned minor league baseball stadium. The bond payments were supposed to be covered by a $1-per-ticket fee collected by the team. However, City Manager Renena Smith told the </span><a style="font-size: 13px;" href="http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/11/18/3617727/fresno-city-hall-grizzlies-fight.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fresno Bee in November</a><span style="font-size: 13px;"> that the team is two years in arrears. To solve its cash flow problems, the city had to borrow $14 million from the water department to balance its books.</span></p>
<h3>Fresno Bee: Thumbs down to Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin</h3>
<p>Even supporters of the water rate hike have become disgusted with the city’s hardball tactics. Shortly after the first ruling, the Fresno Bee editorial board, which backs the water rate increases, <a href="http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/11/29/3638323/thumbs-up-thumbs-down.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">chastised</a><a href="http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/11/29/3638323/thumbs-up-thumbs-down.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Swearengin</a>.</p>
<p>“We support the water-rate increases; they are vital to the city’s future,” the paper wrote. “But with these stalling and blocking tactics, <a href="http://johnhrabe.com/did-fresno-mayor-ashley-swearengin-break-the-law/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Swearengin </a>sends a message that she doesn’t trust Fresno voters to do what’s best for the city.”</p>
<p>The “stalling and blocking tactics” stopped the referendum from reaching the June 2014 ballot. To qualify their proposed initiative for the regularly scheduled November 2014 election, taxpayers would need to submit 4,846 valid signatures to the City Clerk by May 8.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
					
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">58384</post-id>	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Fresno mayor obstructs initiative process to save water rate hike</title>
		<link>https://calwatchdog.com/2014/01/15/fresno-mayor-obstructs-initiative-process-to-save-water-rate-hike/</link>
					<comments>https://calwatchdog.com/2014/01/15/fresno-mayor-obstructs-initiative-process-to-save-water-rate-hike/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[John]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 15 Jan 2014 21:01:40 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Breaking News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Inside Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics and Elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Regulations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Waste, Fraud, and Abuse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Hrabe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[petition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[referendums]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ashley Swearengin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[City of Fresno]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[taxpayer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[water rate hikes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hardball]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[California Constitution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bruce Rudd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[direct democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Renena Smith]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fresno Bee]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Doug Vagim]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://calwatchdog.com/?p=57539</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Fresno residents could see their water rates double, and in the process, all Californians could see their petition powers diminished, if a state appellate court doesn&#039;t act quickly on a lawsuit to]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Fresno residents could see their water rates double, and in the process, all Californians could see their petition powers diminished, if a state appellate court doesn&#039;t act quickly on a lawsuit to stop strong-arm tactics by the city of Fresno.</p>
<p>The battle began last August, when the city of Fresno approved a controversial plan pushed by <a href="http://johnhrabe.com/did-fresno-mayor-ashley-swearengin-break-the-law/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mayor Ashley Swearengin</a> to raise the city&#039;s water rates. The additional revenue would go towards a $410 million upgrade to the city&#039;s aging water system.</p>
<p>Under Swearengin&#039;s plan, most water users, which include city residents and some unincorporated parts of Fresno County, would see their average monthly bills rise to $48, double <a href="http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/12/10/3659963/fresno-mayor-swearengin-makes.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">what they were last year</a>. That didn&#039;t sit well with a group of taxpayers, led by former Fresno County Supervisor Doug Vagim, who mobilized a grassroots effort to overturn the rate hikes.</p>
<p>But when the taxpayers tried to circulate a petition to overturn the mayor&#039;s plan, the city took the extraordinary step of refusing to grant the petition a title and summary. Without a title and summary, the group couldn&#039;t collect the necessary signatures to get a referendum on the ballot.</p>
<p>The move appears to be a direct violation of the California Constitution. <a href="http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/.const/.article_13C" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Section 3 of Article 13C</a> states that &#8220;the initiative power shall not be prohibited or otherwise limited in matters of reducing or repealing any local tax, assessment, fee or charge.&#8221;</p>
<h3>Pre-emptive strike: City sues taxpayers</h3>
<p>Not content to block the initiative, the city went a <a href="http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/09/26/3520671/fresno-city-council-to-sue-opponents.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">step further</a>: <em>It sued the taxpayers</em>.</p>
<p>&#8220;The City anticipates Initiative Proponents will continue to advocate for the Initiative and its submission to the voters,&#8221; its lawsuit states. &#8220;By seeking pre-election relief, the City hopes to avoid the cost and expense of submitting an illegal and invalid Initiative to voters.&#8221;</p>
<p>Attorneys for Fresno made the remarkable argument that the city&#039;s lawsuit would restore the public&#039;s trust in government that had been eroded by the courts.</p>
<p>&#8220;The voters already fear that everything they vote on ultimately gets invalidated by the courts anyway, and we don&#039;t want to feed that fear by letting plainly invalid measures get presented to the voters,&#8221; the city&#039;s attorney, Michael Colantuono, argued in Fresno County Superior Court.</p>
<p>Taxpayers said that the city was using the legal system to undermine their constitutional rights.</p>
<p>&#8220;Our constitutional rights are being infringed on on a daily basis as we&#039;re denied the ability to go to the voters to seek their approval,&#8221; <a href="http://www.bmhlaw.com/attorneys.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chuck Bell</a>, one of the state&#039;s preeminent election attorneys, argued on behalf of the taxpayers. &#8220;Frankly, we still have the hurdle once a title and summary is issued to retain the requisite signatures of a sufficient number of voters to qualify the measure for the ballot.&#8221;</p>
<p>In late November, a Superior Court agreed, and ordered the city attorney to issue the title and summary. Instead of compiling with the court order, the city filed a notice of appeal, which stayed the court’s order, as part of a strategy to run out the clock on the initiative.<br />
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<h3>&#039;Core public service not subject to referendum&#039;</h3>
<p>Swearengin&#039;s office did not respond to an email request for comment on the issue. However, at a <a href="http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/12/10/3659963/fresno-mayor-swearengin-makes.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press conference last month</a>, the Republican mayor said that the city&#039;s interests in managing the water business trumped citizens&#039; rights to petition their government.</p>
<p>&#8220;The city of Fresno believes there is ample case law that indicates that a core public service is not subject to a referendum,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I recognize the short-term pain of raising water rates in the city of Fresno. However, I believe this short-term pain will result in long-term gain for the people of Fresno.&#8221;</p>
<p>Much of the city&#039;s financial problems stem from years of fiscal mismanagement and irresponsible spending. In a November speech to the Rotary Club of Fresno, <a href="http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/12/09/3658299/fresno-not-going-bankrupt-city.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">City Manager Bruce Rudd acknowledged</a> that &#8220;the reality is this organization has always ran close to the edge.&#8221;</p>
<p>Among the city&#039;s money-pits: a costly city-owned baseball stadium for the town&#039;s minor league team, the Fresno Grizzlies. The city owes $3.4 million per year in payments toward the stadium&#039;s construction bonds. The bond payments were supposed to be covered by a $1-per-ticket fee collected by the team. However, City Manager Renena Smith told the <a href="http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/11/18/3617727/fresno-city-hall-grizzlies-fight.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>Fresno Bee</em> in November</a> that the team was two years in arrears.</p>
<p>Which all comes back to the city&#039;s water problems. To make up for the cash it wasn&#039;t getting from the baseball team, the city had to borrow $14 million from the water department to balance its books.</p>
<h3>Fresno Bee turns on mayor over her hardball</h3>
<p>Even supporters of the water rate hikes have become disgusted with the city&#039;s hardball tactics. Shortly after the first Superior Court ruling, the <em>Fresno Bee</em> editorial board, which backs the water rate increases, <a href="http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/11/29/3638323/thumbs-up-thumbs-down.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">chastised</a><a href="http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/11/29/3638323/thumbs-up-thumbs-down.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Swearengin</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;We support the water-rate increases; they are vital to the city&#039;s future,&#8221; the paper wrote. &#8220;But with these stalling and blocking tactics, Swearengin sends a message that she doesn&#039;t trust Fresno voters to do what&#039;s best for the city.&#8221;</p>
<p>The &#8220;stalling and blocking tactics&#8221; have already proven effective at stopping the referendum from reaching the June 2014 ballot. If the <a href="http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.gov/search/case/dockets.cfm?dist=5&#038;doc_id=2064663&#038;doc_no=F068569" target="_blank" rel="noopener">5th District Court of Appeals</a> doesn&#039;t set aside the stay, taxpayers won’t get a title and summary until May, and the referendum would miss the November ballot. To qualify their proposed initiative for the regularly scheduled November 2014 election, taxpayers would need to submit 4,846 valid signatures to the City Clerk by May 8.</p>
<p>The next scheduled election would occur in 2016, by which time the city is expected to have bond funding contracts in place. </p>
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		<title>Dems Trying to Destroy Initiative Process</title>
		<link>https://calwatchdog.com/2011/07/13/dems-trying-to-destroy-initiative-process/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[CalWatchdog Staff]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 13 Jul 2011 07:12:40 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Breaking News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics and Elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mike Gatto]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[progressive era]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[referendums]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Steven Greenhut]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[initiatives]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.calwatchdog.com/?p=20140</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Note: This first appeared in City Journal California. JULY 13, 2011 By STEVEN GREENHUT A series of bills pending in California’s state legislature would severely curtail the use of voters’]]></description>
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<p><a href="http://www.calwatchdog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/finger-election-Wikipedia2.jpg"><img decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-20143" title="finger - election - Wikipedia" src="http://www.calwatchdog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/finger-election-Wikipedia2-195x300.jpg" alt="" width="195" height="300" align="right" hspace="20" /></a></p>
<p><strong><em>Note: This first appeared in <a href="http://www.city-journal.org/2011/cjc0712sg.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">City Journal California</a>.</em></strong></p>
<p>JULY 13, 2011</p>
<p>By STEVEN GREENHUT</p>
<p>A series of bills pending in California’s state legislature would severely curtail the use of voters’ initiatives and referenda &#8212; and have already sparked a long-overdue debate about the virtues of direct democracy. Advocates for reform make some valid points about the problems with the initiative process; it’s certainly the case that legislators and special interests have found ways over the years to abuse it. But those flaws notwithstanding, the current proposals for reform should disturb anyone who wants to keep a check on the legislature’s excesses.</p>
<p>Democratic assemblyman Mike Gatto of Burbank has put forth several far-reaching proposals to restrict the initiative and referendum. Chief among them is Assembly Constitutional Amendment 6, which would <a href="http://leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/asm/ab_0001-0050/aca_6_bill_20110701_amended_asm_v95.pdf" target="new" rel="noopener">require</a> “initiatives that spend money or create a new program or mandate to identify and specify the funding to pay for it.” Gatto and his fellow Democrats insist that the measure, if approved, would apply only to initiatives that created new programs, but Republicans and taxpayer groups worry that it would also apply to tax-cutting initiatives. The bill’s language seems to confirm their fears: “This measure would prohibit an initiative measure that the Legislative Analyst or the Director of Finance determines would result in a net increase in state or local government costs exceeding $5,000,000, other than costs attributable to the issuance, sale, or repayment of bonds, from being submitted to the electors or having any effect unless the Legislative Analyst, the Director of Finance, or both, as applicable, determine that the initiative measure provides for additional revenues in an amount that meets or exceeds the net increase in costs.”</p>
<p>The legislation is expected to come to the floor on Thursday, though with amendments that allow only the legislative analyst to determine whether an initiative meets the financial threshold and that make it clearer that the legislation applies only to new programs.</p>
<h3>Yet More Bills</h3>
<p>Other Gatto bills would empower the legislature to modify initiative language and impose new supermajority requirements for certifying an initiative. The consequence of all these measures would be to reduce dramatically California voters’ ability to place initiatives on the ballot. Yet another reform measure, <a href="http://e-lobbyist.com/gaits/text/277877" target="new" rel="noopener">SB 448</a> &#8212; this one authored by Concord Democrat Mark DeSaulnier, a close ally of public-sector unions &#8212; is simply a harassment bill: it would require signature-gatherers to wear signs with big letters declaring whether they’re paid workers or volunteers, as well as whether they’re registered to vote and where. It remains alive in the Legislature.</p>
<p>What’s wrong with reining in an initiative process that critics on both left and right properly call “ballot-box budgeting” &#8212; in which voters tie the legislature’s hands by mandating various budget items? “Particularly harmful are popularly approved mandatory spending requirements, such as the requirement that the state spend approximately 40 percent of its revenues each year on education,” Troy Senik has <a href="http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_1_california-reform.html" target="new" rel="noopener">written</a> in <em>City Journal</em>, referring to Prop. 98, which voters passed in 1988. Joe Mathews and Mark Paul of the “radical centrist” New America Foundation, meanwhile, <a href="http://www.city-journal.org/2010/bc1018sg.html" target="new" rel="noopener">explain</a> that “California doesn’t have one governing system, it has three systems. These three systems are at war with each other: an election system designed to produce governing majorities, a consensus-based legislative system that amounts to minority rule, and an inflexible system of direct democracy that trumps the first two systems. California doesn’t work because it can’t work.”</p>
<h3>Progressive-era Reforms</h3>
<p>There is, of course, some irony in the frustration of modern-day progressives like Mathews and Paul with a system of direct democracy that emerged from Progressive-era efforts to break the power of railroads and other special interests. Today’s liberals have good reason to be annoyed, since the handiwork of the early twentieth-century liberals usually ends up empowering California’s conservatives. “One of history’s little jokes is that these rebukes [of the governing class by the initiative process] have, more often than not, been defeats for the <em>bien-pensant</em> liberals who are the descendants of California’s Progressives,” William Voegeli <a href="http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1650/article_detail.asp" target="new" rel="noopener">writes</a> in <em>The Claremont Review of Books</em>. “In the last three decades the voters have rejected unlimited property tax increases; public services for illegal immigrants, no questions asked; affirmative action; bilingual education; and same-sex marriage.”</p>
<p>The clear goal of the current reform efforts, championed by unions and liberal Democratic politicians, is to remove power from the people—who often vote for such crazy things as tax cuts, immigration reform, and tough-on-crime measures &#8212; and shift it back to California’s elected officials, who are as beholden to special interests today as their predecessors were a century ago. Constraining the initiative process would mean, for example, constraining voters’ power to reform pensions or impose a hard cap on state spending. It’s difficult to imagine legislators’ doing either of those things when union forces show up en masse at committee hearings to protest even the most modest reforms. So while conservatives may be right in identifying serious problems with the progressive experiment in direct democracy, they should be careful about embracing reforms that would remove the one tool that can save California from a completely unconstrained government.</p>
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