Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 02:28:04 -0500 From: ac245@osfn.rhilinet.gov (Tina M. Wood) Subject: Alliance flyer on voter initiative -------cut here--------- Voter Initiative: Don't assume that your rights are assured What It Is Voter Initiative would allow bills to be voted upon by citizens rather than by legislators. For an issue to be considered directly by voters on a ballot, a minimum number of signatures of registered voters has to first be collected. At election time a packet of info is available which describes each "ballot measure" or "referendum," which are basically bills to be considered by voters. Citizens vote directly for or against each referendum. A bill can be made law by a simple majority of votes in a given election. Operation Clean Government, Common Cause, and other organizations are backers of voter initiative. AFL/CIO has worked very hard against it. It isn't very popular among legislators. It is popular with voters. Especially this year when voters feel that The Mall is going ahead despite lack of public support. To make matters worse the specter of The Convention Center is on people's minds because it had also been approved without popular support and is now losing money. Another factor is that this year is an election year. This means that more legislators may be inclined to vote FOR voter initiative solely because it is popular with voters and may help increase their likelihood of reelection. Why It's Dangerous Voter initiative was used in Maine to try to deny civil rights protections to all state residents, including the repeal of the existing sexual orientation civil rights ordinance in Portland. In Maine many thousands of dollars have been spent by people and organizations on both sides of this very divisive issue. This took away from the time and money resources available for proactive, positive legislation and services. We do not want the same environment of hatred and division spread to our state. If we had been working in RI to defeat a similar measure, we would not have had the resources to do nearly as much of the work which was necessary to pass our Civil Rights Law! In Colorado and Oregon similar situations have occurred because of the existence of a voter initiative mechanism. Incidents of antigay hate crimes increased in Colorado after Amendment 2 was passed. In Oregon, where the most recent initiative was defeated, signatures are once again being sought to put a newer version of the antigay question on the ballot. Our old extremist pal Lon Mabon has stayed busy campaigning against basic civil rights. Additionally, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that individuals are limited in how much money they can donate to a specific candidate. However, there is no such limit on how much money can be spent to lobby for the passage of a voter initiative question because it totally bypasses our representative system of government. This is one reason the campaigns for and against such initiatives get so costly. Phil West, of Common Cause, came to an Alliance meeting last year to reassure us that there would be protections in the proposed legislation against using voter initiative to decide civil rights issues. [Typist's note: not sure if this is the case with this year's bill.] Just what constitutes a civil rights issue, however, can always be debated legally. Well-intentioned safeguards are not necessarily effective ones. This is scary legislation. It defeats one of the purposes of our representative system of government, which is to insure that the tyranny of the majority does not restrict the rights of minorities. To Be Done *Lobby legislators not to support voter initiative *Increase public awareness of the potentional dangers of voter initiative *Inform ourselves on the issues around voter initiative so we can speak clearly and knowledgeably about it. ------end-------- -- ______ Tina M. Wood ac245@osfn.rhilinet.gov \ / Cumberland, Rhode Island twood@qrd.org \ / Homepage: http://drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu/~maire/home.html \/ Queer Resources Directory: http://www.qrd.org/QRD/