The House Judiciary Committee is studying a proposed Constitutional amendment that could make it tougher to get citizen initiatives and referrals on the ballot.
House Majority Leader Al Carlson’s (R-Fargo) measure would require the sponsors to get three percent of the number of eligible voters to sign a petition before it’s put on the ballot. That would increase the number to just over 20-thousand. Right now, the requirement is two percent, or about 13-thousand-500 signatures. Carlson’s measure would require signatures from 27 of the state’s 53 counties as well.
"This is not meant to inhibit people from changing law or changing the work that we do," Carlson told the committee. "It's meant to engage the citizens, and to spread it out across the state."
The measure would also prohibit paying any circulator on a per-signature basis. And it would require measures that would affect the state budget by $20 million or more to be on the November ballot, and not the primary ballot.
Activists don’t like it – saying the measure will inhibit the public from initiating or referring measures.
"Is the resolution solving a problem, or creating one?" said Dickinson businessman Leon Mallberg, a veteran of a number of initiatives and referendums. "Or is it just measured punishment for those who don't always agree with what is coming out of Bismarck?"
The Judiciary Committee did not take immediate action. The measure is HCR 3011. If it passes both houses, it will be on the ballot in 2014.