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And what, you might ask, is Issue 1 this November? From today’s press release, distributed by Citizens for Community Standards and Dancers for Democracy:
Citizens for Community Standards and Dancers for Democracy filed on Monday the petitions needed to block Ohio’s so-called stripper law from taking effect Tuesday.
The groups delivered 120 boxes of petitions containing 382,508 signatures along with five boxes of completed new voter registration forms.
If the groups secure 241,366 valid signatures, Ohio voters will have the chance in November to reject or accept some of the most restrictive regulations ever placed on legal businesses.
Earlier this year, lawmakers spent months crafting the new regulations, rather than focusing on education, health care or jobs. They did so at the urging of Citizens for Community Values, a Cincinnati-based group that gathered the signatures of at least 120,000 Ohio voters to put the issue before the General Assembly through a process known as the initiated statute.
At the time, legislative leaders said the number of signatures collected showed “the people have spoken;” they insisted they had no choice but to respond.
During a Monday news conference, Cincinnati Dancer Kimberly Welch said, “Today, the people have spoken even louder. It’s time to stop legislating morality and time to start helping all businesses grow.”
Welch, who is saving money to attend the University of Cincinnati this winter, is a member of Dancers for Democracy. She promised a vigorous and spirited campaign and predicted that CCV will continue its efforts to try and keep the measure off of the ballot.
“I’d like to ask CCV’s leaders: “If this law is such a great idea, why are you so afraid to let the people vote on it,” Welch asked.
Although today is a state holiday, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner temporarily opened her office to accept the petitions because the deadline to file them fell on Labor Day. Brunner’s office will now forward the petitions to county boards of elections to determine whether the signatures are valid. If the total falls short, the groups will have an additional 10 business days to collect more signatures.
The measure is expected to be the only statewide issue this year and will appear on the November ballot as Issue 1.
Issue 1 will ask voters to reject or accept Senate Bill 16, a measure that would require most adult businesses to close at midnight and impose jail sentences if customers touch entertainers or their clothing, even if the touching is as innocent as a pat on the back.
For More Information:
Contact Sandy Theis, 614-940-0131
Spokeswoman, Citizens for Community Standards and Dancers for Democracy
Am I really going to post 57 reasons to VOTE NO on Issue 1?
Sandy – if you or anyone else wants to work with me on establishing the 57, I would be happy to do the countdown.
First thing let’s do: Figure out exactly which day is the 57th day before the November 6 election day.
More on the ballot language for what will become Issue 1 here.
Here’s a pdf of the actual ballot language.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:03 pm September 3rd, 2007 in Politics
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4 Responses to “57 Reasons to vote NO on Issue 1 this November”
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Sigh…This is a hard one for me since I know the signature process was another Learn and Earn scenario where a good number of those who signed the petition were not given accurate information.
All I can hope for is the same as my hope last time, that voters actually read to see what the real issue is about and maybe, just maybe stop listening to people who tell them what a petition is about and actually read it first before signing…
Knowing one of my good friends was approached with the line of “Sign this so I can get paid a dollar”, I really shudder with the knowledge that given the appearance of the person hired to collect said petitions people in his presence signed it, to get her to stop bugging them. That’s NOT how democracy and our system is supposed to work.
While the two should be separated, it’s very hard to separate the intentions of a group as being honorable when they use such tactics to get something on the ballot. If they start out based on a lie, how is that honesty earned?
That’s a reasonable concern. The only thing I would say in response, as a general thing, not as me per se, is that the person asking to get a signature is but one person out of however many they had across the state. Yes, apparently there were others instances of such behavior – but if we really believe that the walking orders, from the organizers, was to do what was done (say, “Sign it so I get a dollar”) then shouldn’t someone be taking them to court?
I’m going to guess that much like Learn and Earn, there were some who messed with people and others who did what they were supposed to.
As I’m sure we all recall, in addition to the tactics, I really just had a lot of reasons to vote against Issue 3.
In this case, I support the underlying cause and I did long before the Dancers organized themselves. So, it’s not quite as hard for me to separate the how from the what.
But you are right – the how, if not aberrational and in fact intentional, certainly could cloud the whole effort for some people.
The bottom line is, as you said Jill, lawmakers wasted an extraordinary amount of time on this already. And we may as well vote. I vote for the dancers. For goodness sake, what in the world will we legislate next!
Interesting that this initiative could get the sigs and not the sales tax; sigh
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