Redistricting Petition Fails, Now Heads To Court

Capitol Currents:

It's looking less and less likely that Initiative Petition 50 will make the ballot..  Backers of the petition--a constitutional amendment which would dramatically change the way Oregon creates new legislative districts by taking it out of the hands of lawmakers and turning the job over to a panel of judges--have failed to submit enough valid signatures, according to an announcement today by Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown.

In a way, that's no surprise since the petitioners submitted just over the minimum amount of signatures needed--110,358--to qualify a constitutional amendment for the ballot. Typically petitioners try to submit well beyond the minimum amount needed to qualify, since it's inevitable that many signatures will be thrown out for a variety of reasons.But by their own admission, signature gathering for IP 50 didn't kick into high gear in time to provide for that kind of padding.

What makes this case interesting is that sponsors, led by Republican initiative activist Kevin Mannix, contend that state elections workers threw out way too many signatures from the get-go, for reasons that Mannix argues are, well, nit-picky. Mannix's group filed a lawsuit that will get its first hearing in a Salem courtroom this afternoon. But even if all of those signatures that are the subject of the lawsuit are ruled valid, it's still not clear whether IP 50 would actually make the ballot. It will be interesting to see how far Mannix takes the lawsuit, if it becomes clear that he'd be paying legal fees solely to make a point (as opposed to having a practical impact on the outcome of this specific petition).  If Mannix really feels strongly that he's in the right (you can assume he does) and if he plans to continue to be active on the initiative scene (also a safe bet) then he might be gearing down for a lengthy legal battle. But that would require funding, and since another of Mannix's measures has qualified for the 2010 ballot, he might choose to pour resources into getting that one passed.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width="1" height="1" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3320471128493510714-8843401598677436103?l=www.capitolcurrents.com" alt=""/></div>

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