Denver (and Colorado) voters have their first ballot issue for next fall, according to the Rocky Mountain News [December 10, 2005, "Blake: Overhaul of initiative process OK'd for '06 ballot"]. From the opinion piece, "That problem wouldn't happen again if 38 passes. It allows circulators 12 months, not six, to collect signatures, and if they don't make it by the early August deadline they can keep collecting and try to get on the following year's ballot. Under current law, if you don't make it by the August deadline, you have to start all over again. The proposed constitutional amendment would also: Establish the state standard for signatures (5 percent of the last vote for secretary of state) as the maximum for initiatives on local-governments ballots. Cities are currently are allowed to set their own varying standards; Extend the initiative process to county governments and special districts, which unlike cities don't have it now; Allow any sort of initiative to be considered even on odd-year ballots, which the state Supreme Court has ruled can now only feature TABOR-related issues like last fall's Amendment 37; Make it much tougher to disqualify signatures by giving the benefit of the doubt to the sponsors in every case. There's a bit of irony in that, concedes Polhill, a fellow at the Independence Institute, since he helped try to get the Interstate 70 monorail off the 2001 ballot by searching for technicalities; Limit titles of ballot issues to 75 words, no matter how complex the proposal. 'The title isn't supposed to educate the voter in the booth,' grumped Campbell. "The voter is supposed to read the blue blook and become educated before getting to the booth." Apparently he believes that long titles only serve to confuse the voters. For the record, the title board stretched Campbell's and Polhill's title for Amendment 38 from 75 words to 111; Makes all but 12 legislative acts a year subject to immediate review by the people, and the exceptions must be approved by a 3-to-1 margin; Shorten the protest period for ballot titles and single-subject challenges to five days from the title setting, and give the Supreme Court only seven more days to decide the issue. That's very short, but the high court has often taken its sweet time to rule on issues it doesn't like, thus drastically curtailing the signature-collection period; Require voter approval of any future petition laws."
Category: Denver November 2006 Election
7:18:52 AM 
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