Category: Ballot measures

On Monday, the Pima County Recorder certified that enough signatures submitted for the Tucson sanctuary city initiative were valid to qualify it for the ballot. The initiative now goes to the city council. If the mayor and city council do not approve it, the initiative goes onto the November 2019 ballot. If the mayor and…

In April 2018, when Maine had a divided government, the group Maine Death with Dignity launched a ballot initiative to legalize physician-assisted death in the state. Maine Death with Dignity collected around 72,000 signatures—about 9,000 more than required—for the ballot initiative but decided against submitting signatures after Gov. Janet Mills (D), elected the previous November,…

Four new statewide ballot measures were certified for 2019 and 2020 ballots in the past 30 days.   Three statewide measures were certified for 2019 in Maine, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Here’s what they would do: Maine: allow legislation to let persons with physical disabilities that prevent them from signing their own names use an…

On July 11, 2019, Florida Citizen Voters, sponsors of Florida Initiative 18-14, announced having collected more than 1.5 million signatures to qualify the initiative for the 2020 ballot. To qualify for the ballot, 766,200 valid signatures must be submitted by February 1, 2020.   This measure would amend the Florida Constitution to state that only…

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman ruled Friday that two measures (both called Proposition C) on the San Francisco ballot in June and November of 2018 were properly certified as approved by city officials. Schulman ruled that the measures proposing tax increases for specific purposes required a simple majority for approval because they were…

On July 3, 2019, proponents of an initiative to make Tucson the first sanctuary city in Arizona submitted 18,155 unverified signatures to election officials. They needed to collect 9,241 valid signatures by July 5, 2019, to qualify the initiative for the November general election ballot.   Submitted signatures must now be verified by election officials.…

In 2019, 14 states have approved 29 proposals changing laws governing ballot initiatives, veto referendums, referrals, local ballot measures, and recall.   Five approved proposals, however, were constitutional amendments requiring voter ratification in 2019 or 2020. Two additional bills were approved by the Idaho State Legislature, but the governor vetoed them. Five citizen-initiated measures directly…

Over the weekend, the Oregon State Legislature approved a constitutional amendment (SJR 18) that would authorize the state legislature and local governments to (1) enact laws or ordinances limiting campaign contributions and expenditures; (2) require disclosure of contributions and expenditures; and (3) require that political advertisements identify the people or entities that paid for them.…

In Maine, a veto referendum was launched to overturn Legislative Document 798 (2019). LD 798 eliminates religious and philosophical, but not medical, exemptions from vaccination requirements for students to attend schools and colleges and employees of healthcare facilities. The organization Mainers for Health and Parental Rights is leading the campaign sponsoring the veto referendum effort.…

Two referendum petitions have been filed targeting House Bill 3427, referred to as the Student Success Act, which was signed into law on May 16, 2019.   HB 3427 was designed to establish the Fund for Student Success and allocate funding to education purposes including the following: the creation of a grant program in the…