Bill to Restore the Initiative in Mississippi Dies

Posted on by March 26, 2023
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On March 23, Mississippi SCR 533 was killed in the legislature. This is the proposal to restore the statewide initiative in Mississippi. The Senate had passed it with a requirement that a petition be signed by 12% of the number of registered voters. Then the House amended it to 12% of the last gubernatorial vote. The Senate response was simply to ignore the bill, and it is now too late for it to pass.

This is the second year in a row in which the Mississippi legislature has failed to restore the initiative. The State Supreme Court had invalidated it a few years ago because they said it was flawed. It said signtures were needed from each of Mississippi’s five U.S. House districts, but then some years later, Mississippi lost one of its U.S. House seats because the Census showed its population growth had not kept up with the national average.

North Dakota House Softens Anti-Initiative Measure and Passes It

Posted on by March 26, 2023
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On March 23, the North Dakota House amended SCR 4013 and passed it. It had already passed the Senate, but it must return to the Senate because the House changed it. The bill raises the number of signatures for a constitutional amendment from 4% of the population, to 5%. It says constitutional amendments must appear both on the primary ballot and the general election ballot, and they must pass in both elections in order to take effect. It says only North Dakota residents may circulate any type of initiative petition, statutory or constitutional.

But it deleted some harsh features from the Senate version, such as a requirement that all circulators must have lived in the state for four months before the petition starts to circulate, and that constitutional amendments need 67% of the vote in order to pass.

Another North Dakota bill involving initiatives, HCR 3031, was defeated in the House on March 14 by a vote of 29-63. It would have allowed electronic signatures on initiative petitions but would have increased the number of signatures needed for all types of initiative.

Oklahoma Bill for an Earlier Non-Presidential Primary Advances

Posted on by March 26, 2023
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On March 9, the Oklahoma Senate unanimously passed SB 375. It moves the date of the non-presidential primary from the last Tuesday in June to the third Tuesday in June. Assuming it becomes law, it would also automatically move the declaration of candidacy deadline for non-presidential independent candidates a week earlier. In Oklahoma, non-presidential independent candidates don’t need a petition; they just file a declaration of candidacy and a filing fee.

SB 375 does not change the petition deadline for newly-qualifying parties, which would continue to be March 1.

U.S. District Court Permanently Enjoins One Pennsylvania County from Invalidating Petitions Circulated by Out-of-Staters

Posted on by March 25, 2023
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On March 8, U.S. District Court Judge Mark R. Hornak, an Obama appointee, permanently enjoined Allegheny County from invalidating local initiatives on the basis that the petitions were gathered by someone from outside Pennsylvania. OpenPittsburgh.org v Voye, w.d., 2:16cv-01075. This case is very old and had been filed in 2016.

Here is the 13-page order, which lists other lawsuit decisions recently that struck down bans on out-of-state circulators, including two in 2022, from Maine and Montana. The order does not declare the Pennsylvania ban on out-of-state circulators to be unconstitutional, only because of procedural reasons, but it makes it clear that if the court had been asked to declare it unconstitutional, it would have been declared unconstitutional.