I don’t know about you, but I find the assaults by bands of petition signature-gatherers at the front door of Trader Joe’s or Safeway to be extremely intimidating. Now, I won’t sign any petition until I have read the text of the proposed initiative and have decided to support whatever it is, which means that I don’t sign petitions most of the time. However, refuse one petition, and the signature gatherer will whip out a different petition, and another and another. Often, these people are very aggressive, and I have observed scores of shoppers signing these documents without as much as a thought or question.
Recently, I did a little investigating and found out that many of these aggressive “petitioneers” are paid on a per-signature basis, also known as a “bounty,” and that the petitions are often financially backed by large corporations or special-interest groups whose names do not appear anywhere on the petition and supporting material. Furthermore, many of these gatherers are out-of-state residents who hop from place to place as professional mercenaries. In fact, there are many complaints to the Secretary of State’s office of fraud against gatherers who often misrepresent the issues. There is a criminal case looming in Orange County currently where signature-gatherers for the Republican Party are under investigation for switching Democrats’ party affiliation in a fraudulent petition scam. You might say people get what they deserve when they sign their name to something without reading it, but putting them in that situation through a bait-and-switch ploy is surely wrong.
I like the fact that we have initiative, referendum and recall processes in our state, but think they are often misused and overused by organized special interests and corporations who can afford to pay bounties and hire aggressive gatherers who are not above engaging in bait-and-switch to make a buck. Most of us would much rather see an honest, open, grassroots petition process conducted by volunteers who believe in what they are doing, and be told right up front who the sponsors are.
A bill now on the governor’s desk goes a long way to solve these problems. SB 1598, written by State Senator Debra Bowen and co-authored by Assemblyman Mark Leno of San Francisco, will apply to all state and local petitions. The bill requires that the top five contributing sponsors of a petition drive, and any commonality between them (such as five lobbyists for Enron), be printed right at the top of the signature document, along with a statement declaring whether the circulator is paid or a volunteer. This will help voters make a more informed decision by knowing who the financial backers are and who has the most to gain from the proposed initiative. (A further bill is pending that would outlaw payment to gatherers based on the number of signatures they obtain. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld an Oregon law that does just that.)
The governor vetoed a similar bill to SB 1598 last year. He was dead wrong. There is nothing more important to our democracy than a clean, clear electoral process. The more open our electoral process, the better—and that requires that citizens have all relevant information before they make their decisions. The path is clear and the governor should sign this bill into law without further ado.
Jack,
The petition process has been broken for a long time.
Even if you read every word you may not be able to fully understand all the hidden ramifications in the legalese.
Many times it is the Legislature at fault for abandoning their responsibility and passing the ball to the people. We elect these folks and pay them to a job but they never want to tackle the tuff issues.
Ray
But signing the petition doesn’t mean you’re voting for it, just allowing it to be on the ballot. I think the bar is lower for signing a petition—if the summary sounds OK, why not?
The far more important thing is to read the ballot pamphlet before actually voting. I think most people do a good job of this since the majority of the special interest initiatives and referendums seem to get voted down at election time. Now, if only the San Jose pamphlet would include a non-partisan discussion of each candidate including a detailed summary of what they have done in the past, both positive and negative, and how they have voted on all issues since becoming council members, it would really become a more useful tool. Wishful thinking.
Ray # 1 is right—the reason we have such a thriving petition process is the abdication of our elected representatives. We have few leaders, lots of followers (of the polls), and have become balkanized by numerous wealthy special interest groups who are ususally one-hot-button issue organizations.
I don’t find them intimidating, Jack, but they are really quite irritating. Get a good enough game face, Jack, and the aggressive petitioners don’t get too close.
#1 You must be kidding.
What could be a tougher issue than looking out for and protecting the rights of child molestors and sex offenders?
Yet we have no shortage of folks on the left in CA legislature whom have banded together to form the Public Safety commission led by SF’s very own Mark Leno.
Knowing that we have ever vigilant politicians such as Leno working 24×7 so that deviants and criminal sex offenders can sleep easy should warm the hearts of all “progressives” in this state.
Sorry for being off topic. But in light of all the discussion here lately about Lowes not wanting to work with the citizens of SJ on their proposed new store, and refusing to take the judges ruling against them, I thought you might get a big kick out of their add today in the Merc.pg.8a. It says “LETS BUILD SOMETHING TOGETHER”. Could this be a good sign, or just a meaningless slogan?
Novice – You can’t really be as clueless or as “anti-left” as you come across, can you? Makes you seem kind of biased towards only that narrow group of folks who might agree with you and your distorted view of the world. Try widening your view a little and really learn what is going on. Thanks, and keep contributing.
Novice – Can you document with facts that Leno actually supports child molestors?? I doubt you can, but I’d be glad to read it if you can.
Here you go Curly. http://tinyurl.com/l6yfx
8 – Perhaps a check should be run on your sanity and comprehension ability. You have stooped to a new low. Not only do you spew nonsense, you have now become insulting. Congratulations, you have now joined those fringe contributors whose rantings are no longer worth the time to read.
Sorry, Curly – Novice is closer to the truth than you might think.
1) Mark Leno, as chair of the Assembly Public Safety Committee, has blocked AB 231, a/k/a “Jessica’s Law” from coming out of committee (source – here)
2) In the 2003-2004 session, Mark Leno, as chair of the Assembly Public Safety Committee, voted against AB39, which would have increased the mandatory penalty for possession of child porn from a misdemeanor. to a felony, preventing that bill from getting out of committee and to the open floor.
There are multiple other examples, if you would like to check the Assembly website.
Curly – my apologies for the busted link. However, I could provide chapter and verse to you, and I have a sneaking feeling that you will reject anything I present to you out of hand as being “biased.”
Bias is merely showing preference for one side over the other, and I will state up front that I am violently opposed to what Mark Leno has done in his tenure as chair of the Assembly Public Safety Committee. One can merely look at his record and see demonstrated that, on balance, when the issue of sexual abuse of any sort comes up, Leno supports the criminal side of the ledger.
There is a reason that the Jessica’s Law has had to go to initiative: Mark Leno has blocked it in committee, trying instead to substitute via the gut-and-amend process his own watered down version which allows possession of up to 24 pieces of child pornography, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, with no definition of “piece.” (movie? DVD? CD with pictures?)
His rationale in that allowance is that people could “mistakenly” end up with the magic one item that would qualify them for felony status, and he stated (wrongly) that federal law allows possession of up to 75 before triggering a felony. Fortunately, that decision has now been taken out of his hands, and the AB231 version will probably pass to the tune of 70-30 this November. He was also magickally concerned about the “money” aspect, when his votes on other issues would indicate that fiscal stewardship is not his bag.
I have gone out of my way to source this using actual newspapers and voting records rather than wiki or blogs. Were one to go that route, Mark Leno would turn into the devil incarnate, but he’s not – he’s just terribly misguided – especially in terms of public safety – and has no business being in any responsible position of guvmint.
But as we have seen on multiple other threads on SJI, sometimes the voters don’t make the most informed decisions on matters that affect the entire community for the long term. Thus, the initiative process.
Because as long as ideologues of both parties hold the levers of power in Sacramento, the initiative process is probably the only way to project some stability and sanity in state guvmint.
“..S.B. 33, known as the “Circle of Trust” bill, which seeks to remove the loopholes in California law that allow the courts to offer more lenient sentences, including probation instead of prison, to those who abuse their own family members rather than strangers.”
…
“The bill passed in the Senate in spite of significant opposition from Senator Carole Migden and passed in the Assembly Committee on Public Safety in spite of opposition from the committee’s chairman, Mark Leno.”
It’s crystal clear that Leno has a well established and reprehensible track record advocating for the rights of sub-human child molestors.
This is not about partisan politics, this is about the public safety of women and children.
How much more proof do you need? That you and Wandering are defending Leno speaks volumes.
Novice – You’re too much. Who is defending Leno?? The discussion was asking you to provide facts to back-up your view that Leno and others were supporting child molesting. Of course, that is as ridiculous as your comment that this is not about partisan politics. Even the article from the Chronicle that JD sites shows there are two points of view about this, neither of which supports child molesters. You and your fellow distorters love to take a hot-button issue and portray something as truth even when it is not. Show me any statement that Leno says he is supporting child molesting.
If you know anything about legislation, and I’ll assume you do, then you know bills are written with all kinds of crap in them. The basic intention of the legislation may be great but the add-ons make it unacceptable for one or more reasons. That is likely the case here but you choose to make a Leno a supporter of child-molesters because of it. You can’t sink much lower than that, Novice.
Enjoy your weekend.
Wandering,
Leno’s actions speak quite clearly about who’s interests he has at heart.
You have been spoon fed links and citations of numerous bills that clearly show time after time that Leno comes down on the side of sex offenders and child predators.
Your continuing to argue over semantics and parsing on this issue is disgusting.
But I don’t want to finish the week on a severely down note, so I’ll leave you with a happy thought and hope for the future.
“A state that is currently 55-45 in favor of liberals (like California) will be 54-46 in favor of conservatives by 2020—and all for no other reason than babies.”
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008831
You and your ilk’s days are numbered.
I take it that by “narrow group of folks…”, you’re referring to those of us who who are of the mind that sub-human child molestors should be sent to Saudi Arabia for “rehabilitation”?
And Mark Leno’s your guy?
Can the SJI editors please run a megan’s law check on Wandering?
Thanks, JD. Your first link doesn’t go anywhere so I don’t know what that said. The other two back-up your statement, but that’s a BIG leap to say that because Leno opposed this bill related to child pornography that he supports child molesters. Unfortunately, the right loves to take things out of context to fit their particular opinion. I have not followed Leno’s career closely, but what little I have heard from always seems well thought out and reasonable. Why did Leno oppose this bill? I don’t know and I assume neither do you or Novice. When you present a more complete and unbiased comment I’ll pay more attention.
Novice, now you’re just being silly. CA will always be the Land of Fruits and Nuts. Hell, now we’re exporting some of the Fruitiness and Nuttinenss to other states – particularly AZ, where normal shoo-ins JD Hayworth and Jon Kyl are having to put up an actual fight in their re-elections.
Besides, the Legislature is so leftoid that most folks of the conservative stripe give up and move to Texas or Idaho before their families are of voting age.