Hopes Dim For Fall Ballot Measures To Legalize Pot

[bobandtorey]

They dug deep into their middle-class pockets, held fundraisers across the state and spent months going door to door or standing at shopping centers and city halls to gather petition signatures.

But hopes are dimming fast for the volunteer effort called MiLegalize, which aimed to put on ballots this November a proposal to legalize, regulate and tax recreational marijuana in Michigan.

A bill rushed Thursday through the Michigan Senate was aimed at closing a loophole that might have let MiLegalize qualify for the ballot by certifying thousands more of the signatures the group gathered.

 

"With everything happening, from Flint to the Detroit schools, this is the priority for the Legislature," said an exasperated Jeff Hank, a Lansing lawyer who is chairman of MiLegalize — known in full as Michigan Comprehensive Cannabis Law Reform Committee. Yet, Hank said the fight isn't over to qualify most of about 250,000 signatures that the group has gathered and more that it still needs.

The bill, expected to gain quick passage in the state House and then receive Gov. Rick Snyder's signature, won't make it easier. But Hank maintains that any new law governing the process can't apply retroactively to his group's ongoing petition campaign. And he said his group plans to use existing law to assert that signatures it gathers outside the 180-day limit can be certified.

The group needs about 253,000 valid signatures from registered  Michigan voters; but because such efforts typically include numerous invalid signatures, the raw total should be more than 300,000. Because MiLegalize began collecting in late June, it  already has exceeded Michigan's long-time limit of 180 days in which circulators may collect signatures.

 

Hank's contention — shared by an environmental group seeking to get approval for its anti-fracking measure, which would sharply curtail petroleum drilling in Michigan — is that Michigan's 180-day limit can be stretched if a group proves that signatures gathered outside the time frame are still valid.

And they should be able to do so using modern technology — the state's database of registered voters, developed well after the 180-day limit came into use, he said. He's encouraging MiLegalize volunteers to continue collecting signatures, hoping that they'll be able to use that state database can be used to verify a signer's qualifications.

"Petitioning is a fundamental right, just like freedom of speech, and so the policy (that regulates it) has to be the least burdensome way of exercising that right," Hank said Thursday,adding: "If the state doesn't approve us for the ballot, we're going to sue — that's 100% guaranteed."

Medical-marijuana user Deborah Young, 58, of Ferndale, a retired florist, said she and other volunteers had gathered about 500 signatures Tuesday at two voting precincts in Ferndale.

"And we had people all over the state doing the same thing — this isn't over," Young said.

If the proposal fails to make the ballot, it would probably spell the end of what is apparently the best-funded and best-organized effort to put a cannabis question on state ballots this year. Two other groups dropped their efforts last fall. A fourth, Midland-based Abrogate Prohibition, is seeking to amend the state constitution — an even higher bar that requires collecting 315,00 signatures by July 1, according to state election law.

John Pirich, a Lansing lawyer and veteran constitutional law expert, testified last month and again Monday before the state Board of Canvassers against any move to stretch the 180-day limit, Pirich said. He also testified last week before the state Senate Elections Committee in support of the bill that would affirm the 180-day limit, he said.

"When the framers of the constitution came up with this process, it was never meant to be easy. It’s supposed to be a high bar," he said. Such citizen referendums prevailed when Michiganders approved the returnable bottle-and-can law in 1978 and the state's medical marijuana act in 2008.

The 180-day limit is "what we've all lived with" for decades, Pirich said, adding: "It’s just the petition drives that don’t have enough signatures that are arguing with that."

The bill’s passage came on a day that two medical-marijuana dispensaries – or sales outlets – were raided by police, according to the Oscoda County Herald newspaper web site. The raids were reportedly in Mio and Lewiston, east of Grayling.

http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2016/03/10/marijuana-cannabis-medical-marijuana-legalization-petition-signatures-michigan-ballots/81612972/

[beourbud]

We Can Do This!

 

The Solution = ABROGATE

 

Get involved,

 

FREE the WEED

[bobandtorey]

I'm involved a lot but i think i should do more but have lost almost all my food stamps it is down to only $16 dollars a month so i can't do much any more No Gas $$$ for the car if someone want's to go out and get more signatures send me a PM and i will help

[blackhorse]

Why not send the petitions back to the petitioners? I'm referring to the petitions that are past the 6 month time frame.

 

Then they might be able to get people to sign again, as they possibly might know some of the signers.

 

I turned in petitions at the beginning and probably know 80 % of the signers.

 

Just a thought.