John Matsusaka, President of the Initiative and Referendum Institute at USC, endorses e-signatures for official initiative petitions

 John G. Matsusaka is the Charles F. Sexton Chair in American Enterprise in the Marshall School of Business, Gould School of Law, and Department of Political Science at the University of Southern California, and President of the Initiative and Referendum Institute at USC.

Asked for a comment about the campaign by the Coalition for an E-Initiative to allow eligible Californians to sign official initiative and related petitions online, he today issued this statement to Etopia News:

"The right of the people to petition the government goes back to the founding of the Republic and the right of the people to propose new laws by initiative goes back more than a century in California and other states. In the 21st Century, when a vast amount of communication and business takes place online, it only makes sense to take advantage of contemporary technology to allow citizens to exercise their petition rights electronically."

The Coaltion for an E-Initiative (CFEI), launched as a Facebook page on February 15, 2013, is working to legalize online signature-gathering, also known as e-signatures or “Smart Initiatives,” in California and half-a-dozen other western states (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington State) that already allow their citizens to register online to vote and have the initiative process but do not yet allow online signature gathering on official initiative and related petitions.

The CFEI is the brainchild of Marc Strassman, partner in the private equity firm Green Asset Finance, and a long-time champion of digital democracy.

He is, for example, the author of the turn-of-the-century non-fiction volume “Etopian Elections:  Internet Voting, Smart Initiatives, and the Future of (Electronic) Democracy, available online at:

http://www.etopiamedia.net/si/pages/si-ee-htmls-5551212.html

You can see and hear him talking about Smart Initiatives in 1999 at IBM’s Institute for Electronic Government, at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNfz2vu5P3I

You can hear his 2002 cyber-democracy plan for the never-realized “Valley City” (Los Angeles secession campaign) at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqvN2-HtwWk

You can catch his virtual address to the 2010 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rX0QAGln1c

For a video panel discussion he produced and hosted about “"Electoral Evolution Beyond Online Voter Registration" with election officials from Arizona, Utah, and Washington State, recorded on October 9, 2012, on Etopia News, using Google+ Hangouts On Air, go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuNfLU7XYiU#t=882

He urges all those who support a citizen’s right to use the Internet to sign official initiative and related petitions online to visit the Coalition for an E-Initiative Facebook page at:

https://www.facebook.com/CoalitionForAnEInitiative

“like” the page and leave your own comments on the issue of e-signatures on official initiative petitions.

(FULL  DISCLOSURE:  This article was written by Marc Strassman, reporter at, and publisher of, Etopia News.)

Joe Mathews supports “participatory, deliberative processes” as a source of worthy ideas for initiatives, regardless of signature method

Declaring that “changing the method of signatures is a distraction,” Connecting California columnist and Zocalo Public Square editor Joe Mathews offered a thoughtful riposte to an inquiry regarding the refusal of the ACLU of California to support the campaign of the Coalition for an E-Initiative (https://www.facebook.com/CoalitionForAnEInitiative) to win California voters the right to sign official initiative petitions online on the grounds that online signature-gathering “could be used to more easily qualify initiatives that seek to limit fundamental rights.”

Bringing a bit of realism to the discussion, the journalist tells Etopia News:

“I think you and the ACLU are both wrong. There's no real reason to worry that e-signature gathering would make it easier to qualify measures for the ballot, in and of itself. It still will remain very difficult, and costly, to get the hundreds of thousands of signatures necessary to qualify for the ballot. Initiative sponsors will have to spend millions to get the attention of signers and to employ people to approach people to sign on-line (probably on iPads and tablets) that are carried around. Changing the method of signatures is a distraction. We need less costly, alternative paths to the ballot that allow initiatives to qualify because the ideas in the initiatives are found to be worthy after participatory, deliberative processes.”

California ACLU doesn't support Smart Initiatives, says they’d be used to “limit fundamental rights”

The ACLU of California has come up with a new reason for opposing the right of Californians to sign official initiative petitions online.  According to their spokesperson:

            We are concerned that e-signature gathering could be used to more easily qualify initiatives that seek to limit fundamental rights, so we do not support the use of e-signature gathering to qualify initiatives at this time. 

            “Of course, we’re disappointed,” said Marc Strassman, Executive Director of the Coaliton for an E-Initiative (https://www.facebook.com/CoalitionForAnEInitiative).  “I have the utmost respect for the ACLU of California as the premier guardian of our civil and political rights, and as a progressive and forward-looking organization, but I don’t quite see how enabling Californians to sign initiative petitions in the comfort and convenience of their homes and offices or on their tablets or smartphones from wherever they are is likely to lead to initiatives ’that seek to limit fundamental rights.”

            (full disclosure:  Marc Strassman is also the reporter who wrote this article.  In addition to his work for the Coalition for an E-Initiative, he also serves as Host/Publisher of Etopia News.)

Amanda Reiman at DPA on California cannabis legalization efforts

Amanda Reiman, Policy Manager for the Drug Policy Alliance in California, talks about the history of efforts to legalize cannabis in the Golden State and discusses possible further attempts to create and pass the Control, Regulate and Tax Marijuana Act in 2014 or 2016, recorded on December 9, 2013.