By Barb Shelly | Kansas City Star
Who knew petition drives could be so much fun?
Here are some of the highlights from the Missouri Secretary of State’s announcement about which efforts gathered enough signature to qualify for the statewide ballot in November:
—The “Buck Stops Here” Award (not) goes to James Harris, executive director of ShowMe Better Courts, for his reaction to the news that his group’s effort to select judges through partisan elections had failed to gain enough valid signatures.
“We are very disappointed that Lincoln Strategies failed to collect the requisite number of signatures, but we will continue moving forward and will resubmit the petition in November,” Harris said in a written statement.
Lincoln Strategy Group is the Arizona firm which Harris hired to gather the requisite number of signatures.
It’s not too hard to imagine Harry Truman ruefully shaking his head.
—The “Grasping at Straws” honor goes to lawyer Chuck Hatfield, representing sponsors of the “Stop Double Taxation” petition drive, aimed at banning transfer taxes on home sales in Missouri. That campaign also failed to gather enough valid signatures, prompting Hatfield to promise legal action.
The lawsuit, he said, will among other things “ask the court to count signatures rejected by the Secretary of State due to petition circulators not being registered with the state.”
But state law requires petition circulators to be registered. So we’re going to have a lawsuit asking the court to tell the state to ignore its own law? Bizarre, but stranger things have happened.
—The “It’s My Money and I’ll Spend it How I Want To” trophy goes to St. Louis multimillionaire Rex Sinquefield. He spent $6.8 million on a successful signature-collecting drive to secure a statewide vote aimed at ultimately getting rid of the earnings taxes in Kansas City and St. Louis.
—The “It Was My Money and I Wish I’d Spent It On Something Else” award is being shared by Joplin roofing supply executive David Humphreys and St. Joseph construction bigwig Stanley Herzog. Humphrey gave $475,000 to Harris’s unsuccessful effort to elect judges; Herzog chipped in with $275,000. The busted effort also benefited from nearly $1 million given by groups with vague names and anonymous contributors.
—The “Slippery Slope” honor goes to Karen Strange of the Missouri Federation of Animal Owners, for her ominous prediction about what might happen if Missouri voters approve a statewide petition regulating dog breeding operations. Strange is especially concerned about a provision limiting breeders to a 50-dog maximum.
“We are voicing concerns about if the government starts restricting the number of animals a dog breeder may have, how long is it going to be before they start restricting everything else, including cattle, hog, poultry production and everything detailed in our lives,” she told St. Louis Public Radio.
—The “Wake Me When It’s Over” prize belongs to Missouri residents. Along with a high-stakes U.S. Senate race and the non-stop campaign ads destined to go along with it, we also face the prospect of three months of unrelenting images of abused puppies and lectures about the foolishness of wanting to keep up basic services in the state’s two largest cities. What did we do to deserve such an honor?
Read more: http://voices.kansascity.com/entries/not-my-fault-if-your-petition-drive-failed/#ixzz0vlO3RaSg
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