The president of the Greater North Dakota Chamber of Commerce says it might be too easy to get an initiated measure on the ballot in North Dakota.
"It's nice to have the will of the people to be able to get something on the ballot," said Andy Peterson. "But we're starting to believe, given all the measures that are coming up, we maybe need to look at making it a little more difficult to get something on the ballot."
Peterson says California, for example, got itself into a lot of trouble because of ballot measure after ballot measure.
"The Legislature's hands there are ties," said Peterson. "They have things like 'three strikes and you're out.' I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but they put people in prison out there at a very fast clip. And they don't provide the money for prisons, because there's little money left. That's an example of the law of unintended consequences."
Peterson says he doesn’t have any concrete proposals to make the initiative process tougher – but he says he’d like to start the conversation.
