On February 9, the Mississippi Senate passed SCR 533 and SB 2638. They restore the statewide initiative process. Mississippi had the initiative process until 2021, when the State Supreme Court ruled the old law was fatally flawed and couldn’t be used. The problem with the old law was that it said signatures were needed from all five of the state’s congressional districts, but afterwards the state lost one of its U.S. House districts.
The new bill is considerably harsher than the old law. The old law required signatures of 12% of the last gubernatorial vote, but the new bill requires 12% of the number of registered voters. The old requirement, after the 2019 gubernatorial election, was 106,190 signatures, but the new requirement is approximately 240,000.
The bill says no one may circulate the petition who doesn’t live in Mississippi, and bans paying circulators on a per-signature basis. But the old law had those characteristics also. The new bill requires the 12% requirement to be met in every U.S. House district, but the old law had that provision as well.
The bills now go to the House. If they pass, the voters will vote on the idea in November 2023.
It is good that they are trying to restore the process, but the previous law was already really difficult. There is no legitimate reason to make it more difficult.
Some people fret that initiatives impair the power of the legislature, but, in truth, the legislature always retains the power to amend, or even repeal, initiatives that they don’t like. I’ve seen it happen in Massachusetts. There was an initiative that passed to allow charitable deductions on the state income tax. The Great and General Court repealed it as soon as they could.
And, even more so with constitutional amendments. There is a requirement in the Massachusetts constitution that any initiative for a state constitutional amendment must be voted on the by state legislature before it goes to the ballot. Well, guess what? If the state legislature doesn’t like it, they just don’t take it up for a vote. In theory, the initiative just rests with the legislature until they do. There are proposed constitutional amendments for term limits from several decades ago that are still sitting in “to-do” box of the General Court.
People signing election documents should be from the state and registered to vote. We are a Republic so each state should decide what is best for each state. No need for carpetbaggers, scalawags or interlopers.
Elections should be standing counts. Stand in your precinct. Elect the party that appoints the peace officers. Go home. Repeat election day of next year.
In New England, states are small, and professional petitioners go from state to state to put both candidates and initiatives on the ballot. Without them, I would have nothing to vote for except career Democratic politicians.
Also, in New England local option is strong. You can have a town government where people meet face to face to vote on everything, or a standard city charter where people cast secret ballots for the mayor and councillors.
since 1618 VA — ANTI-Democracy minority rule gerrymander oligarchs with tyrant top hack monarchs —
taking tax slave taxes and moron lender loans to put in pockets of statist special interest gangs.
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Voter approved law inits [as with voter const amdts] >>> ONLY voters can amend/repeal.
Much less need for inits IF IF IF PR = REAL indirect Democracy.
People should meet face to face to vote, and it should be on only one thing: picking the winning party. The winning party then picks the law enforcement officers (who also serve as judge, jury and executioner) over the next year, replacing them at will. These officers should be paid with the proceeds of the poll tax which would be one of many requirements to vote, and all other taxes would be abolished. Laws should be simple, easy enough for average people to know and memorize them all. Further interpretation to be done in the field by officers. If a winning party wants to appoint a law review commission they can, but ideally the laws would be simple and common sense and hardly ever need to be changed.