HELENA — Friday, June 19, was the final day to turn in petition signatures to get a statewide ballot measure in front of Montana voters this fall. Eight proposed initiatives started the signature-gathering process this year, and supporters of three of them believe they’re on track to qualify for the November ballot.
(Watch the video for more on what's next for proposed initiatives.)
The last announcement came Thursday from Montanans Decide, the committee behind Constitutional Initiative 133 – a measure intended to simplify the process for introducing ballot initiatives in the future. Committee leaders say they turned in more than 100,000 signatures, well above the minimum 60,241 they’ll need to qualify. However, that’s still an unofficial number, as election officials will have to determine whether the signatures are valid.
Campaign manager SK Rossi told MTN there’s been strong enthusiasm for CI-133.
“Montanans understand the value of the ballot initiative process itself, even if they don't understand necessarily the nitty-gritty,” Rossi said. “But we're hopeful that by the time November rolls around there, they'll understand why that nitty-gritty is important to ensuring that the right exists and is functional for them to use.”
Montanans Decide has argued the Montana Legislature has made it more difficult to propose and pass ballot initiatives. CI-133 would amend the Montana Constitution’s existing provision that guarantees the right to pass laws and amendments through ballot measures, expanding it to include a right to “impartial, predictable, transparent, and expeditious processes” for proposing those measures. It would also seek to prevent “interference from the government or the use of government resources to support or oppose the ballot issue.”
“I think that it's a nonpartisan issue,” said Rossi. “The ballot initiative process is for everyone. Folks across the political spectrum use it. This year they attempted to get a property tax initiative placed on the ballot and weren't able to do so because the process has become so cumbersome and the timeline for gathering signatures has become so short.”
A statutory initiative – which only changes state law, not the Montana Constitution – requires at least 30,121 signatures statewide. It also needs a minimum number of signatures in 34 of Montana’s 100 legislative districts, to show there’s support in more than just one part of the state. Constitutional initiatives have stricter requirements: 60,241 statewide signatures and a qualifying number in 40 legislative districts.
All petition signatures have been turned in to county election offices across the state. Those officials will now be reviewing each signature. It can only be counted if it’s from an active voter, if it matches the signature on file for that voter, if the voter is registered in the county where the signature was submitted, and if the voter hasn’t already signed.
County offices must finish their review and report the results to the Montana Secretary of State’s Office by July 17. After that, the Secretary of State will make the final certification of which ballot issues actually qualified for the November election.
Rossi is confident CI-133 will get what it needs and says Montanans Decide is already preparing to campaign for the measure.
“Once we get the the final word from the Secretary of State, we'll be ready to go,” said Rossi.
CI-133 joins two other measures that supporters believe will qualify:
- CI-132, a constitutional amendment to require that Montana judicial elections remain nonpartisan.
- I-194, a statutory initiative attempting to get around the Citizens United decision and block corporate spending in Montana elections.
Five other initiatives were approved for signature gathering, but their sponsors have ended their campaigns or told MTN they don’t expect to get enough signatures to qualify:
- CI-129 and CI-130, two versions of a proposal to cap property valuations as a way to limit the growth of property taxes. Sponsor Matthew Monforton initially proposed CI-129, then revised it into CI-130, but said last week he would not have enough signatures to get it on the ballot.
- CI-131, another proposal to keep judicial elections nonpartisan. Its sponsors ended their signature-gathering efforts and threw their support behind CI-132.
- CI-134, a proposed amendment to limit how much local governments can increase property taxes. State Sen. Wylie Galt, R-Martinsdale, said he was suspending the campaign for the measure because time was running out to get the signatures needed.
- CI-135, an alternate version of I-194 that would have amended the Montana Constitution. That version of the proposal was held up in court much longer than I-194, and sponsors said that didn’t leave them enough time to have a realistic chance of getting enough signatures for it.
