Bill would change how petition signatures are verified
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By ANNA JO BRATTON / The Associated Press
Of the millions of signatures collected since Nebraska adopted a petition initiative process in 1898, hundreds of thousands have been thrown out for various reasons.
Some rule technicalities would themselves be thrown out under a bill proposed Thursday in the state Legislature.
For instance, if a Nebraskan who signs a petition has moved since registering to vote, state law says that signature should be struck from the initiative.
ON THE FLOOR:
— EDUCATION SAVINGS: Parents or students saving for college could deduct 10 times more from state income taxes than currently allowed, under legislation introduced by Sen. Tim Gay of Papillion. Current law allows for a $1,000 deduction from federal adjusted gross income. The bill (LB338) would raise that to $10,000. Married people filing separately could deduct $5,000, up from $500. The Legislature established the Nebraska Educational Savings Plan Trust in 2001. It lets people invest money in tax-deferred funds to save for higher education.
— FAKE IDS: Bartenders and others who serve alcohol could confiscate driver’s licenses and turn them over to police if they have reason to believe people under 21 are trying to buy alcohol. Sen. Lowen Kruse of Lincoln introduced the bill (LB337). He also has proposed a bill eliminating exceptions to the law that lets minors drink at their own home, or at church as part of a religious ceremony. Sen. Steve Lathrop of Omaha brought a bill (LB258) that would impound the driver’s licenses of minors in possession of alcohol. Minors convicted three times couldn’t drive until they turned 21.
— PETITIONS VERIFIED: The process by which petition signatures are verified could be simplified. Now, the election commissioner or county clerk invalidates a signature unless voter registration records include an address that matches the address provided with the signature. The bill (LB311) would strike that and other requirements.
— NOMINATING SIGNATURES: The number of signatures needed to put a name on the ballot for a partisan statewide office would double under a bill brought by Sen. Carroll Burling of Kenesaw. Currently, it takes 2,000 petition signatures for an office such as governor. The bill (LB298) would require 4,000 signatures and also would require at least 50 signatures from each of one-third of the counties in the state. But the bill could decrease the number of signatures needed for nonpartisan offices. The law now requires 10 percent of the total number of registered voters who voted for governor or president in the previous general election in the area where the petition candidate is to be elected. This bill would cap that requirement at 2,000. The rules wouldn’t apply to University of Nebraska regents and board members of Class III school districts, which are kindergarten-through-12th grade school districts with populations of 1,000 to 150,000 people.
— LOTTERY MONEY: The disbursement of lottery proceeds would stay the same for five more years under a bill by Sen. Ray Janssen of Nickerson. At least 25 percent of the money from lottery tickets sold goes to the State Fair board, the Education Innovation Fund, the Nebraska Scholarship Fund, the Nebraska Environmental Trust Fund and the Compulsive Gamblers Assistance Fund.
QUOTES OF THE DAY:
"This budget is a concerted effort to control state spending, and I am going to share its message of restraint with local leaders to encourage them to follow our example," said Gov. Dave Heineman, calling on Nebraskans to rally behind his tax-cutting agenda.
"My concern is that we just went through a very horrendous period when revenues were down and we had to do very serious slashing of the budget. If we’re going to do tax cuts, let’s make sure they’re sustainable." Longtime Sen. DiAnna Schimek of Lincoln, who urged a cautious approach to the governor’s package.
But in 1999, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that the law regulating how petition signatures are validated is unconstitutional.
Judges said rejecting signatures for minor technical reasons hampers the ability of the public to engage in the initiative process.
“If the secretary of state is trying to make is easier for people to be involved in the petition process, that would be a good thing,” said Mike Groene, a North Platte businessman who sponsored a petition drive to cap state spending last year.
Lawmakers “bemoan the fact that only 50 percent of the people vote, then they try to restrict the process,” Groene said.
Under current law, a signature is presumed valid only if all the records match exactly.
The bill (LB311) removes the language that an exact match is required.
If changed, the state law would be vague. But the attorney general has written standards that would be conveyed to counties, which would keep verification practices uniform, said Sen. Ray Aguilar, who introduced the bill at the secretary of state’s request.
“I think everyone’s pretty much in line,” the Grand Island senator said.
Messages left for officials in the secretary of state’s office Thursday by The Associated Press weren’t immediately returned.
The Legislature considered a similar bill in 2001, but did not vote on it before the session ended.
A tumultuous initiative season last year heightened interest in the issue. A petition touted by Nebraskans for Humane Care fell short of the roughly 114,000 signatures needed to be placed on the ballot, and the group claimed that many signatures were wrongfully rejected.
The group ended up with 109,000 valid signatures. The proposed constitutional amendment needed about 114,000.
Groene’s group, Stop Over Spending Nebraska, gathered about 160,000 signatures, he said, and nearly 40,000 were thrown out. The initiative went on the Nov. 7 ballot, but was rejected by voters.
“We thought that was an awful high number of rejections,” Groene said.
Groene said he is looking for a senator to introduce legislation to reduce the number of signatures needed to get an initiative on the ballot.
A group wanting to amend the state constitution must gather signatures from 10 percent of the state’s registered voters — in November elections, that meant about 114,000 signatures.
Groene and others want that changed to 10 percent of those who voted in the last governor’s race. That was the threshold before a 1994 ruling by the state Supreme Court, and would doubtless be a lower number.
“That would solve a lot problems,” Groene said.
A group wanting to create only a state law needs about 80,000 signatures — 7 percent of the state’s registered voters.
A resolution (LR8CA) introduced by Sen. Bill Avery of Lincoln would decrease that to four percent of registered voters, but would increase the percentage needed for a proposed constitutional amendment to 15 percent.
“What I’m aiming to do here is to make it harder for outside money to come into the state and amend our constitution,” Avery said.
A constitutional amendment is much harder to overturn, and local grass-roots groups usually concentrate their efforts on changing state law, Avery said.
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