Free Republic

The 2018 midterms are being built up as “The most important election of our lives,” but the issue that could fundamentally change the political atmosphere in one of the most important swing states in America is barely getting any play, roughly two weeks from election day. Amendment 4 in Florida would restore the right to vote for all felons, with an exception for those who have been convicted of murder and rape. The initiative has the support of major interest groups on both the right and the left, including the ACLU and Americans For Prosperity. “There’s strong recognition that this...

Northern California would encompass almost the entire upper part of the state, including the Bay Area and Sacramento; California would include the Los Angeles area and extend along the coast through Monterey County; Southern California would include everything else, including Orange County, San Diego and Fresno, a map of the proposal showed. Southern California would be the most populous of the three states, with 13.9 million residents, according to California’s Legislative’s Analyst’s Office. Northern California would have 13.3 million residents, while California would have 12.3 million. “The citizens of the whole state would be better served by three smaller state...

DENVER (CBS4) – The state attorney general’s office is investigating possible fraud in connection with another ballot initiative. A measure to raise the minimum wage in Colorado to $12 an hour by the year 2020 made the ballot this year, but opponents question whether it should have. The concern comes after a new revelation about potentially forged signatures on one of the petitions. This is the second fraud investigation into a ballot initiative process so far this year, and the situation has raised serious questions about Colorado’s petition process.

A Democrat-backed measure that would give California the nation’s toughest restrictions on ammunition and allow the seizure of magazines exceeding 10 rounds has qualified for the state ballot. The California Secretary of State’s office announced Thursday that the Safety for All initiative, championed by Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, had gathered the petition signatures necessary for a slot on the Nov. 8 ballot. “Enough massacres, death, tears, and hate – it’s time to take action and save lives,” Mr. Newsom said in the Sacramento Bee. “The Safety for All initiative gives California voters the opportunity to keep guns and ammo...

HeÂ’s back. And heÂ’s not running for president. (Not yet?) Just when big government boosters in the Evergreen State thought it was safe to raise taxes, Tim Eyman and the group Voters Want More Choices have returned to the streets with Initiative 1366. I-1366 is identical to Initiative 1325, a measure Mr. Eyman failed to get onto the 2014 ballot. That flop came after the ballot initiative guruÂ’s biggest benefactor had passed away. And not long after the Washington Supreme Court had struck down as unconstitutional his previous initiative requiring a two-thirds vote of the legislature or a vote of...

Supporters of the initiative collected well more than the 433,971 signatures needed for it to go before voters in the fall, again putting the state at the forefront of the nation's drug debate. An initiative to legalize marijuana and allow it to be sold and taxed will appear on the November ballot, state election officials announced Wednesday, triggering what will probably be a much-watched campaign that once again puts California on the forefront of the nation's debate over whether to soften drug laws. [Snip] With polls showing that a slim majority of voters support legalization, the legalization campaign will be...

Beware, California voters, of emasculation -- according to Howard Dean. The chairman of the Democratic National Committee came out swinging today against Monday's news of a new campaign to qualify the initiative changing how California's electoral votes are awarded. And just like the first time the initiative surfaced, he blamed it squarely on Republicans in general, and GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani in particular. The initiative, said Dean, is "an opportunity for the Republicans to neuter California, to take away California's role as the most powerful state in the country when it comes to selecting the president." Dean and state...

Colorado for Equal Rights files Pro-Life Amendment June 19th, 2007 Today Colorado for Equal Rights filed language with the Colorado Legislative Council to start the process of a ballot initiative for the November 2008 election, which will grant rights of personhood from conception. This proposed amendment to the Colorado Constitution states, “As used in Article II, Sections 3, 6, and 25 of the Colorado Constitution, the words “person” and “persons” shall include any human being from the moment of fertilization.” www.coloradoequalrights.com

In the 1 ½ years since the kidnap, rape and slaying of Florida 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, almost 20 states have passed laws in her name toughening penalties on sex offenders. On Nov. 7, California voters will have their say. Prop. 83, dubbed Jessica's Law by supporters, proposes the toughest sex-offender rules in the country. It would go well beyond the first Jessica's Law passed by Florida lawmakers in the months after authorities say sex offender John Evander Couey killed Lunsford in March 2005. Couey is scheduled to stand trial in Miami in February. He has pleaded not guilty. All signs...

How HHS Bullies North Dakota Citizens by Stephen Baskerville and Mitchell S. Sanderson Human Events Online Aug 17, 2006 Those who work in what was once nobly known as the civil service -- and what has degenerated into the "bureaucracy" -- are required by law and ethics to be politically neutral. Presidents and members of Congress, cabinet and sub-cabinet secretaries can voice opinions. Even judges are permitted (and often abuse) a privilege of obiter dicta. But career officials are supposed to implement the policies of the people and their elected officials, not publicly advocate what those policies should be....

California's Supreme Court decision Friday to restore a redistricting measure to the November special election ballot is bad news for state Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who was trying to have it removed on a technicality. But the ruling is very good news for anyone fed up with the state's rigged system for electing lawmakers. In California, incumbents draw their own district lines, which has made elections as suspenseful as professional wrestling. Of 153 state and Congressional races last November, not one seat changed party hands. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has made redistricting reform a centerpiece of his agenda, and nearly one...

California has been a hotbed for judicial activism going back several decades. In the golden state, the people can put a measure on the ballot, pass it overwhelmingly, only to have one judge cancel out the will of the people. Although there was no ballot initiative in the gay marriage case, a judge in San Francisco struck down a 1977 law that specified legal marriage could only be between a man and a woman. My point is not to say the law is right or wrong, but whether or not a judge should be allowed with one stroke of a...

By far the most dramatic menace to this nation’s future and safety emanates from the cauldrons of Islamist extremism. But Americans are also in danger of losing their country on another front. A far larger incursion into the American homeland is being carried out via its southern border. Though an ongoing problem for many years, its instigators now apparently believe they are ready to take their attack to the next level. During a January 28 radio interview, Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez has threatened the State of Arizona with legal action through the international courts in order to overturn...

Widespread public opposition to gay marriage potential benefit to Bush on Election Day.

Alaska Libertarians file suit over rejected hemp initiative [February 17] Alaska Libertarians and other anti-drug war activists have filed a lawsuit against the state's lieutenant governor for rejecting an initiative to decriminalize hemp. On January 28, the Free Hemp in Alaska (FHA) organization filed a lawsuit in Superior Court in Anchorage to force the state to place the initiative on the August 2004 ballot. In the lawsuit, FHA attorney Ken Jacobus argued that initiative backers filed enough signatures to qualify the measure, even though they failed to follow all of the state's record-keeping rules. "Why disenfranchise thousands of voters?" asked...

NOTE: The 1st District Court of Appeal declined to certify a discretionary appeal on Amendment No. 5 to the Supreme Court, denied the stay and ordered that the ballot title and summary be stricken from the general election ballot. For this reason Amendment No. 5 was removed from the ballot. Therefore, the amendments on the ballot will simply skip Amendment No. 5 and go from Amendment No. 4 to Amendment No. 6. Ballot Summary: Proposing an amendment to the State Constitution identical to a proposed amendment to Section 17 of Article I of the State Constitution which was approved by...

American Original Ward Connerly is expected to turn in signatures on his racial privacy ballot initiative in Sacremento today.If passed by voters in November, it would prohibit the state from collecting data based on racial, ethnic or gender catagories.The Sacremento Bee's Dan Smith looks at the soft money donations fueling the signature drive.