Check out Senate Bill 334 if you don’t believe me. Introduced on December 9th, it’s called An Act to amend 8.10 (3) (intro.), 8.15 (4) (a), 8.20 (3) and 8.40 (2) of the statutes; relating to: verification of the identity of nomination paper and petition circulators. It seeks to impose restrictions and obstacles to the collection of petition signatures.
From the LRB Analysis:
This bill provides, in addition, that the circulator’s statement must be in the form of an affidavit acknowledged by an officer who is authorized to administer oaths affirming the circulator’s identity and stating that the circulator appeared before the officer and executed the statement in the officer’s presence.
This is the bill that requires a notary to attest to the validity of the collector’s identity, a problem which does not exist. It does nothing to vet the integrity of the people who actually signed the petition. Those problems are handled after the petitions are already in the hands of the GAB. In other words this bill is designed specifically to make it more difficult to petition the government and to collect recall signatures. It’s a jobs bill for bad legislators and governors.
Like the Republican obsession with “voter fraud” where none exists, this is a naked attempt to slow or even derail the recall process, a process which is not broken. Shame on you, Senators Grothman and Lasee and Representatives Stroebel and Thiesfeldt. Shame, shame, shame!
Crap. For some silly reason, I thought that bill was dead. Dam!
Didn’t Lasee — a few years back–say that a notary public was not necessary? I have a vague recollection of that article.