TAKING THE INITIATIVE, REFORMERS BEWARE

No matter what your local municipal charter says (or implies), unless your petition form strictly conforms to both local AND state formatting standards, you are treading on thin ice. If your local political authorities such as the mayor or council approve of your issue, they will give you a pass and permit you to follow local rules only. If they don't like your issue, watch out.

Also note that even in states and municipalities that do allow initiatives, generally any that would affect the budget process are specifically barred.

(Actually, this restriction is there for mostly good reasons. Say, for instance, a powerful municipal union decides it did not get a big enough pay raise from the mayor or council. Theoretically, that union could simply have its members circulate a ballot proposal to raise its pay - bypassing the elected authorities and hopelessly screwing up the city budget in the process.)

In the DCCC case, although our initiative was revenue neutral, it was in retrospect, a rookie mistake to have even mentioned the words "budgetary process" in our proposal. That was an engraved invitation for a legal challenge.

Finally, if you are dealing with a municipality with a "strong mayor" system - where the mayor is directly elected by the people and is, by charter, responsible for the administration of the city - be very careful. In that instance, it is likely the Council has some authority over the total budget and can pass ordinances, but that will be the legal extent of the Council's power. And since the initiative process is essentially merely an extension of the legislative process, expect a legal challenge if you make "lowest law enforcement priority" the purpose of your initiative.

That being said, in most, smaller communities (i.e., under 100,000 population) the mayor is either the highest vote-getter among the council candidates or is elected by a majority of council members.

In this situation, it is usually the Council that runs the show. The administration of the city is done by an unelected City Manager who serves at the pleasure of the Council. If that is your situation, then the possibility of a legal challenge with respect to "lowest law enforcement priority" is greatly reduced.

One final point on legalities.

It is also a very good idea to include a "severability clause" in the language of your initiative. That is, in the even that one provision of your proposal is found to be illegal by a court of law, the rest of your language still stands.

We did, in fact, have such a clause. And it would have saved us, too, had we lost on the budget issue only. In our case, however, our petition form itself was "facially defective" under state law - which meant all was lost from Jump Street, as that kind of error is always fatal.

Continue to A STATEWIDE INITIATIVE or back to the Index