On May 23, the California Assembly passed AB 1451 by 56-19. It makes it illegal to pay circulators on a per-signature basis. It also says statewide initiatives cannot qualify unless at least 10% of the required signatures were collected by volunteers.
The California League of Women Voters opposed this measure. A similar measure was vetoed by former Governor Jerry Brown in the past, but he is no longer Governor.
Are there any court cases relevant to this issue?
RED COMMUNIST DONKEY ANTI-DEMOCRACY MINORITY RULE GERRYMANDER OLIGARCHS AT WORK — IN THE CA SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLIC — CASSOR
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PR AND APPV
ALL PETITION STUFF — BALLOT ACCESS – LAWS – CONST AMDTS MUST BE *SELF-ENFORCING* —
ZERO MACHINATIONS BY LEGIS HACKS — WHO HAVE BECOME TOTALLY EVIL POWERMAD CONTROL FREAKS FROM HELL.
IE SPECIFY FORMS, PCTS, DATES, ETC. — FLOW SHEET TEXTS.
WHERE IS THAT *MODEL CONSTITUTION* ??? — AT LEAST HALF HAVING ELECTION LAW TEXT.
ESP — PR AND APPV – PENDING CONDORCET.
There are lots of court decisions on the issue of payment on a per-signature basis. About half the courts that have had such cases have struck them down, and the other half upheld them.
But there has never been a state that said a certain percentage of the signatures have to be collected by unpaid people.
work — no pay = slavery
13 Amdt violation ??? — on top of 1 and 14 Amdt violations ???
Most likely unconditional. The person signing is disenfranchised because his or her signature does not count based on whether the signature collector is paid or not. Similarly the same if the signature collector is resident or not.
Meant unconstitutional in previous post. Damn spell check
The 10% may be collected by an employee of a non-profit (e.g. labor union, Citizens United, etc.) Whose primary purpose of that employment is not to collect signatures.
The wording on the two petitions is not neutral.
This petition is being circulated by a volunteer or an employee of a nonprofit organization.
This petition is being circulated by a person paid to obtain your signature.
A voter would read the first as mainly a volunteer, and perhaps interpret employee as a non-paid volunteer employee. “Obtain” has a negative connotation. Newspapers “obtain” information when they don’t want to reveal that it was purloined, leaked, paid for, etc. A car salesman is trying to sell you a car. If he does, you will sign a sales contract. But you wouldn’t say that he was trying to obtain your signature. An identity theft would try to obtain your signature.
Since the law forbids paying on a per signature basis, it is not true that a circulator is being paid to obtain a signature. If a circulator said, “if I get John’s signature, you’ll give me $5?” and then went over to John, it would be true that he was being paid to obtain John’s signature, but it would be illegal to do so.
But if the paid circulator is attempting to obtain your signature, then so is the volunteer. A volunteer may be a zealot, who is motivated to deceive, or even use force or coercion. “This woman said she liked the idea, but said she had to get her kids to soccer practice. I told her that soccer practice could wait for SAVING THE PLANET, and grabbed her wrist so she could quickly sign.
The law also requires the statement “you are encouraged to read the contents of this petition before signing”. This is true for both types of circulator, but for the paid circulator it is immediately after being told that the paid circulator is trying to obtain the signature.
The procedure in effect sets a distribution requirement, where the 10% requirement is checked separately. Since California does not permit curing of petitions, the two efforts are going to be conducted in concert.
If a circulator is productive, he will continued to be used. If he is particularly productive, he may receive a raise to keep him circulating. It is disingenuous to claim that there is not payment per signature. I can’t pay $3 per signature, or $20/hour to collect 50 signatures. But I can pay $20/hour and not hire for the next day, if the circulator doesn’t collect 50 signatures.
There is a place for low producing petition signature gatherers. Lots of low producers can still equal a lot of signatures. Setting a pay system that punishes, and disincentivizes hiring, and keeping, low producers, willmake it more diificult to qualify petitions for the ballot.
Also, pay by the hour is not a good or efficient system for paid petition drives, and has been thrown out in court in several states.