Tag: Initiative and referendum

  • Kansas needs citizen-powered democracy

    Following is an op-ed by Paul Jacob that recently appeared in the Wichita Eagle, although this is the version he sent to me. Jacob is president of Citizens in Charge Foundation, a national organization that promotes the rights of initiative and referendum. The citizens of Kansas enjoy neither of these.

  • Kansas scores poorly in initiative and referendum rights

    Citizens in Charge Foundation — a transpartisan national voter rights group focused on the ballot initiative and referendum process — has released its 2010 Report Card on Statewide Voter Initiative Rights. Those familiar with Kansas will not be surprised to learn that our state scores poorly, as do many other states.

  • Oklahoma tinkers with petition law; Kansas has none

    Sometimes we in Kansas like to poke fun at our neighbors to the south in Oklahoma. I’m sure they do the same to us. But one way in which Oklahoma has Kansas beat is in Oklahoma citizens’ ability to petition their government through the process of initiative and referendum. It’s not possible to do this…

  • Democracy thrives as Ballotpedia surpasses the 10 million page views milestone

    When Americans went to the polls in November and continued casting ballots during the 2009 off-year elections, they turned to Ballotpedia (www.ballotpedia.org) to get objective information about candidates and ballot initiatives. The California pages pertaining to Proposition 8 and the more recent ballot measures alone garnered more than 1.3 million page views. That is why…

  • Still Oklahoma’s most wanted

    A Wall Street Journal editorial explains the recent development in the case of Paul Jacob and two others in Oklahoma. This case is of interest for a few reasons. First, I know and like Paul Jacob. He’s been at the forefront of the fight for term limits. The Oklahoma case stems from his advocacy of…

  • Kansas Lags in Initiative and Referendum

    On Saturday I traveled to Oklahoma City to attend “Reforming the Reform Process: How to Restore Oklahoma’s Initiative.” What I learned is that Oklahomans are concerned with reforming a valuable citizen right that doesn’t exist at all in Kansas. The initiative process allows citizens to place a question on a ballot to be voted on…