Let's Legislate!

Every once in a while, someone in our community gets a bee in their bonnet about something and starts a petition.  I've lost count of how many times someone has rung my doorbell, asking me to sign something.  The latest tactic is for them to stand outside the public library and ask if you are a registered voter, hoping to strike up a conversation in order to persuade you to sign their petition.  Some petitions are nonsense, while others have merit.  The real problem is trying to decipher exactly what the "legalese" is saying.  I prefer to just refuse, rather than sign my name to something I don't fully understand.

In this last election, two petition issues made it to local ballots.  While both issues passed, neither of them will likely have any effect on our communities, besides costing the taxpayer money in city legal fees, and rendering yet another useless piece of legislation.

The first one is so long and complicated, I have a headache deciphering it all.  In a nutshell, a group of mothers banded together to fight fracking in our community.  Fracking is the process of drilling and injecting fluid into the ground at a high pressure in order to fracture shale rocks to release natural gas inside.  Nobody is in favor of it, except for the companies doing it and the landowners who have signed over their mineral rights, in order to get a monthly stipend.  We had people not want to buy our house last year because of this issue, even though we hadn't signed over any rights, just because our property was over an acre, and you can lose your rights if enough landowners adjacent to your property do sign over their rights.  It's a headache, yes.  So while I agree with the mother's group, the local government's hands are tied, because the state government has declared that this is fine and dandy.  As the mayor said, "the community is directing this administration to refuse all future drilling in our city, despite the fact that the ban violates state law and will most certainly subject us to lawsuits and expensive legal bills, since the laws that permit them to drill are solidly in their favor."

The second one was promoted by a couple who wanted the city to have a 'Democracy Day' every other year, in opposition to the United States Supreme Court’s 2010 decision which allows members of unions and shareholders of corporations to make contributions to campaigns. The couple believes that groups of people should not pool money together to promote their ideas.  While I agree with them that the Supreme Court decision was a bad one, I'm not sure what our little town having a special day every other year will do??  The day is to be set aside to discuss campaign contributions and its impact on elections and require the mayor and city council to participate in this meeting for the next ten years.  In addition, the mayor has to send a letter to our state and federal government stating, "Corporations are not peole and money is not speech."

Frankly, I think this couple is smoking some bad weed if they think this is going to have ANY impact whatsoever on the Supreme Court.  Besides the fact that it now requires the mayor, who has the duty to uphold and support the law, to publicly oppose the United States Constitution.  My husband said everyone who voted for this issue should be forced to attend and sit through Democracy Day.  I'm just saddened that more local money is going to be wasted on this for the next ten years.

Happy Democracy Day, everyone!