On September 5, the California legislature passed AB 421, a bill that would have made it more difficult for referenda and initiatives to get on the ballot. But those provisions were taken out of the bill before it passed. Now the bill simplifies the ballot when a referendum is on the ballot. A referendum is a petition to stop a new bill that the legislature had recently passed. California has had the referendum since 1911. Referenda on California ballots have long been confusing, because there would inevitably be puzzlement about whether a “yes” vote means, “Repeal that new law”, or “Keep that new law.”

The bill provides that when a referendum is on the ballot, the ballot will ask the voters, “Overturn the law” or “Keep the law.”

AB 421 originally outlawed paying circulators on a per-signature basis. It also said that 5% of the signatures had to be from unpaid circulators. Those provisions were removed from the bill, probably because Governor Gavin Newsom had told the legislature that if they remained in the bill, he would veto the bill. He had previously vetoed such bills. So had his two precedessors, Governors Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

As passed, AB 421 also gives the sponsors of a referendum more flexibility to remove their measure from the ballot, should the legislature react to the referedum petition by repealing part of the law the referendum sponsors didn’t like. And it adds a law that information about the two top financial backers of the referendum should be mentioned in the Voter’s Guide that is mailed to all California voters.