Raising the filing fee for ballot initiatives harms the public
Authored by Democratic Assemblymember Lori Saldana, passed through California’s majority Democratic Assembly 43-22 with no debate and no Republicans voting for it, AB 1832 now heads over to the California state Senate for approval.
This political trickery has me congratulating the state Assembly on outdoing both the Los Angeles Unified School District and the City of L.A. in sending the worst mixed message ever. Yes—the state Assembly’s passage of AB 1832 outdoes the LAUSD’s “I believe the children are our future…but let’s cut the school year down a smidgen, the amount of teachers on staff, while raising classroom sizes to alleviate budget constrains” and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s “The uh, City of uh Los Angeles has uh run out of money…but I will uh still continue to uh get paid while I ask uh that city employees to take furloughs and uh be laid off.”
There are very few avenues for the People to advance their ideas in today’s political climate. If support for new legislation can’t be found from a member of the state’s Legislature willing to carry it, and that is often the case, ballot initiatives have been a popular way for the People take their concerns straight to the voters, bypassing the state Legislature.
One might look at the pending initiatives vying to qualify for this year’s ballot and conclude that the state Assembly’s support of the fee hike directly relates to the number of recent anti-Legislature initiatives up for consideration.
With proposed statutes dealing with everything from California’s budget process to the ability of lawmakers to vote on legislation that directly related to their campaign contributors and the popular Citizens for a Part-Time Legislature—a constitutional amendment to cut the legislative session and lawmaker’s pay by 50 percent — it makes you wonder if Sacramento lawmakers are trying to put an
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