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"I pledge to support and vote for a constitutional amendment |
A well crafted and prudently safeguarded Initiative
The Initiative for Texas amendment was crafted over a six year period, after hearing testimony of citizens and experts at five separate hearings of a Texas Senate Special Committee on the Initiative appointed by Lt. Gov. Bullock.
- Just as the Legislature can not make laws abrogating unalienable individual rights enumerated in the United States constitution and Article 1 of the Texas constitution, neither can citizens using the initiative.
- To insure that the Special Interests do not dominate the
Initiative process:
a) the voter approval required is not 60%, but a simple majority. and
b) the number of initiatives on any ballot is not restricted to some artificially low number which would favor the moneyed interests. - To screen out unconstitutional proposals and minimize lawsuits, the Attorney General will provide an opinion on the constitutionality of each initiative.
- For clarity, the format of initiative petitions will be prescribed by the Secretary of State so that petitions are easy for citizens and circulators to use.
- Every petition sheet used for collecting signatures must contain the full text of the initiative proposal.
- To insure that only issues of concern to large numbers of voters will be placed on the ballot, valid signatures of registered voters equal to 4% of the total votes of all candidates for Governor must be collected to qualify a statutory initiative proposal. This is about 200,000 valid signatures. Constitutional initiative proposals must have 50% more signatures.
- To prevent urban populations from dictating to the rest of Texas, initiative proposals must collect signatures exceeding the 4% or 6% threshold in each of half of the State Senate districts.
- The number of signatures and their validity must be certified by the Secretary of State.
- To maximize public awareness about issues on the ballot, there will be at least five months of public debate on an initiative qualified for the ballot.
- To prevent obfuscation, the wording on the ballot must read the same as the wording on the petition.
- To maximize voter turnout for initiative proposals, they will be on ballot only at the statewide even-year November general election.
- To insure voters know who is supporting or opposing an initiative proposal, once it is certified that it will be on the ballot, all spending for or against it must be promptly reported to the Texas Ethics Commission.
This initiative amendment proposal insures initiative issues will get public scrutiny for at least 440 days -- sometimes over 700 days.
"Initiative and referendum make government more responsive to its citizens,
neutralize the power of the special interests and stimulate public involvement in state issues."
George W. Bush