AUMA campaign spokesperson is optimistic about qualifying for the ballot

Jason Kinney, Principal at California Strategies, LLC, and spokesperson for the Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA)/The Sean Parker Initiative campaign, today provided this comment to Etopia News, in response to a query regarding the status of their signature-gathering campaign, which must collect 365,880 valid signatures by July 5, 2016 in order to qualify their initiative for the November 8, 2016 general election ballot:

“Signature gathering has been brisk and enthusiastic and we have every expectation that we'll be submitting significantly more than the required number of signatures by the deadline.”

As documented here, AUMA has already reached the 25% level of signature gathering that triggers a referral of the proposed legislation to the California State Legislature.

According to a notice on California Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s website: 

“Elections Code section 9034 requires that once proponent(s) of a proposed initiative measure have gathered 25% of the number of signatures required (currently 91,740 for an initiative statute and 146,352 for a constitutional amendment) proponent(s) must immediately certify that they have done so under penalty of perjury to the Secretary of State. 

“Upon receipt of the certification, the Secretary of State must provide copies of the proposed initiative measure and the circulating title and summary to the Senate and the Assembly. Each house is required to assign the proposed initiative measure to its appropriate committees and hold joint public hearings, at least 131 days before the date of the election at which the measure is to be voted on. However, the Legislature cannot amend the proposed initiative measure or prevent it from appearing on the ballot.” 

Researching the status of this legislation in Sacramento under the terms of Elections Code section 9034 is the next project for Etopia News.