From Barbara Anderson CLT
July 27, 2010
This is the last week of the legislative session. A Constitutional Convention is scheduled for Thursday, July 29 at 1 pm.
There is a constitutional amendment on the agenda, Senate Bill 23, that would end the initiative petition process for us forever.
I’ll just copy for you here an excerpt from a memo from The Coalition for Marriage and Families.
Amendment Seeks to Dismantle the Initiative Petition Process
The legislature is scheduled to convene a Joint Session of both the House and Senate in a Constitutional Convention THIS THURSDAY, July 29 at 1PM. While most of the proposed constitutional amendments have received negative reports that are highly unlikely to be overturned, there remains on the calendar a very dangerous amendment that received a favorable report from the Joint Judiciary Committee. This amendment would, for all intents and purposes, shut down the citizen initiative petition process. Currently, Article 48 of the Massachusetts Constitution does not allow an initiative petition concerning certain specific subjects: religion, the judiciary, petitions affecting only particular districts, or appropriating money from the Treasury.
However, Senate Bill 23, sponsored by Senator Cynthia Creem (D-Newton), and its equivalent, House Bill 3537, sponsored by Reps. Alice Wolf (D-Cambridge) and Byron Rushing (D-Boston), would add the following prohibited subjects: “The rights to freedom and equality; the right of each individual to be protected by society in the enjoyment of life, liberty and property, according to standing laws.”
If approved, this broad, undefined language would guarantee that virtually no initiative petition could pass muster, since all laws or public policy proposals have some impact on life, liberty or property.
Certainly it would preclude any tax cuts or tax limitation petitions.
In the past, attacks on the initiative petition process have been filed with the Election Laws Committee, which we watch closely.
However, the sponsors of SB 23 have sneakily bypassed the more sensible Election Laws committee and used the Joint Judiciary Committee, which quietly gave the proposed amendment a favorable report last year. And while normally the Legislature would not hold a Constitutional Convention during this busy week, they plan to meet just long enough to pass this particular amendment.
Our legislative allies, led by minority leaders Richard Tisei and Brad Jones, are prepared to fight this effort. Just the threat of resistance may make the legislative leadership decide not to do this now.
As with any constitutional amendment , it would have to go on the ballot for the voters to decide in 2012 . But it’s much safer to stop it ASAP.
Please call your legislators, both House and Senate, with a simple “I’m not going to argue with you” message: Leave the initiative petition process alone. You’ll find their contact information on the CLT website, scroll down to Other Information, click on Find and contact, you’ll be connected to the Sec. of State’s legislative search page.
If there is a vote, it will be a roll call, so if they think we are paying attention they may not risk it in this volatile election year. If they do we will post that roll call on our website.
Even if they don’t, you should know the sponsors of SB 23, in case you have an opponent for them this year. Here are the leading legislators who want to kill the initiative petition process: Cynthia Stone Creem, Patricia Jehlen, Martha Walz, Elizabeth Malia, Barbara L’Italienne, and Kay Khan.
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Read the original story at North Shore Tea Party
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