I found a legislative analysis on HB 4328, which would shrink Michigan's initiative petitions to standard printer page. The bill passed their house 100-7 last year, but has not yet been discussed in the Senate. Most interesting parts are the arguments for and against:
For:
Providing the option of eight-and-one-half by eleven petition sheets would make them [...]
A couple of things the last week.
Got a message at home from the Code Reviser's office. The sizes of petitions have been changed twice. In 1913 they were initially set at 12×14 (probably something to do with standard size of newsprint at the time) and again in the early 80s at the current 11×14. Seems [...]
Seattle:
SMC 2.08.030
Specifications for petition.
When the ballot title has been established for a proposed initiative measure, the persons proposing such measure may prepare blank petitions, printed on single sheets of paper of good writing quality no smaller in size than eight and one-half (8 1/2) inches in width and eleven (11) inches in length and no [...]
Looks like I’m headed down to the State Library in Tumwater and sending an email to the Code Reviser’s Office.
From: Clarke, Tina Mailed-By: secstate.wa.gov
To: emmettoconnell@gmail.com
Cc: “Wills, Patricia”
Date: Mar 20, 2006 11:08 AM
Subject: RE: Initiative petition page size questions
Emmett,
I do not know what the history of RCW 29A.72.100 is; either the Washington [...]
About a year ago in Michigan Rep. Leon Drolet (R) introduced a bill to allow petitions to be as small as 8.5 by 11. Right now in Michigan the rule spells out exactly 8.5×14, but Drolet’s bill which passed the house but seems to be stuck in the state senate, would allow two size options [...]
I did answer one question today, wasn’t hard to do. If there is a law changing the initiative process, what path would it take through the legislature?
This is an important question because what committees hear a bill is important because that bill will get as much or more consideration in committee that it every will [...]
This seems like a good first step. I wanted to set up some meetings with my local legislators, but I think I should cover my bases first:
To: elections@secstate.wa.gov
Subject: Intitiave petition page size question
I’m working on a project to shrink the minimum allowed size of initiative petitions. I haven’t been able to find much information on [...]
Both Evergreen Politics and Horse’s Ass wrote about (printer) Democracy yesterday, with a relatively thoughtful comment thread resulting from the HA post. David at HA initially kicked it off by pointing out that my solution would be only helpful as part of a larger reform of the initiative process, which he listed here.
Most of his [...]
I knew there had to be something wrong here. From a not very deep look into our nation's initiative petitions, Washington State requires the largest — no less than 11×14 inches, almost twice the size of standard printer paper.
None of the states that I looked at in a search of the Initiative & Referendum Institute's [...]
That didn’t take me long. Discovered a new resource for old initiatives so I didn’t have to do alot of deleting.
UPDATE: Based on some email insight last night, I decided to try to get the pages down to two so that the actual petition would be one page, two sided. Still, anyone with a home [...]
