Just Say No to 2024 Referendum Petitions
People Who Lie for a Living Endanger the Environment, Worker Protections
Corporate entities unhappy with California have set themselves up via questionable signature campaigns to overturn laws protecting the environment and maintaining miserable working conditions in the next election.
While they are certainly within their rights to do this, it’s far from the right thing to do. In each instance, laws were enacted in the wake of opportunities to reach compromises rejected by these industries.
These companies know an informed electorate would reject their ballot measures, so the signature gathering process plants the seeds for dishonest campaign claims. Additionally, the mere act of mounting a campaign to overturn legislation halts implementation and enforcement of new laws. And if they lose at the ballot box, there’s always litigation to gum up the works.
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Californians have seen this chicanery in action recently, as Big Tobacco is now in the lawsuit phase of fighting a ban on flavored tobaccos after losing at the ballot box with Proposition 31.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has denied the company's emergency motion to block the law pending appeal, so R.J. Reynolds and other tobacco companies filed a request in late November asking the U.S. Supreme Court to impose an emergency order to stop California from enforcing a ban on flavored tobacco products.
The ban was first passed by the state legislature two years ago as a countermeasure to a staggering increase in teen smoking. It never took effect after tobacco companies gathered enough signatures to put it on the ballot. With nearly two-thirds of voters approving the banning the sale of everything from cotton-candy vaping juice to methanol cigarettes, it was set to go into effect by December. 21.
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Senate Bill 1137, banned new oil and gas wells within 3,200 feet of places people live, work and play. On September 16, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the law, which also tightens oversight of existing operations.
This law didn’t come out of left field. It was passed on the final day of the legislative session following an all-out industry campaign against it. A similar effort to ban fracking and instate a buffer zone died last year in committee.
Although California is the seventh-largest oil-producing state in the U.S., until now there were no regulations on how far active oil wells should be from populated areas. Industry whining about over-regulation in California is disproven by the fact that other oil producing states, including Colorado, Pennsylvania and Texas have already implemented various forms of buffer zones between communities and oil wells.
In 2022, there were three instances of leakage from drilling operations endangering the health of nearby residents. Nearly 70% of the people living within the buffer zones included in the law are people of color. Repeated studies show that these Californians have an increased risk of serious health problems, and their children are more likely to have birth defects and lifelong health issues.
Just days after Newsom signed SB 1137, the oil industry’s legal team filed a referendum to overturn the law, scheduled to go into effect on New Year’s Day.
From Inside Climate News:
Sponsors of the referendum have until Dec. 15 to collect nearly 625,000 signatures to get the measure on the 2024 ballot. But they won’t have to wait for Californians to vote. Simply qualifying for the ballot freezes enforcement of the law creating buffer zones, buying oil companies almost two full years to expand or continue drilling in those areas.
Galvanized by that prospect, 16 oil companies have spent more than $17.9 million since mid-October to support the referendum, according to the nonpartisan Fair Political Practices Commission.
Just three companies with neighborhood drilling operations in the state—E&B Natural Resources, Crimson Resource Management and Signal Hill Petroleum—have spent more than $9.6 million, state campaign finance records show.
A host of paid petition gatherers have appeared outside retail locations in recent weeks, enticing people to sign their referendum petitions with claims it would put a measure on the ballot to ban new oil and gas wells near schools, hospitals and homes.
Here in San Diego, I heard individuals in front of Trader Joe’s in Mission Valley repeatedly promising that signing the petition would lead to lower gas prices.
Usually these petition gatherers were also pitching a petition seeking to overturn AB 257, the state law enhancing protections for fast-food workers.
The claim I heard repeatedly at this and other locations was that their efforts were aimed at protecting small independent restaurants. (The law mostly impacts franchise operations with more than 100 locations in California.)
A fast-food industry coalition, Save Local Restaurants, has been spending heavily on the referendum, and now claims to have submitted over 1 million signatures, far more than the 623,000 needed to put it on the ballot.
A Los Angeles Times review of video footage taken by SEIU’s Fight for $15 campaign documented four separate incidents with petition gatherers falsely claiming the petition would support an effort to raise wages for fast-food workers.
The oil company / fast food connection to these referendum quests is Nielsen Merksamer, a lobbying firm that specializes in ballot measures that’s handling both signature drives. It should surprise nobody that their most recent past effort was aiding the tobacco industry’s efforts to repeal laws restricting the sale of flavored tobacco products.
It makes me sick to my stomach to learn that California’s process of citizen involvement in governance has been taken over by people who lie for a living. Signature gatherers being paid per voter captured has enabled this corruption, along with the state’s willingness to look the other way at flagrant violations of the law.
In general, I recommend that you avoid signing any petition presented to you by a stranger. Arguing with petition gatherers isn’t productive and doesn’t affect the real bad guys in these situations.
Email me at: WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com