OGA petition needs 512 signatures

A citizen petition to subject the Legislature to the Open Government Act needs about 500 more signatures to get on the ballot this November.

Rep. Tina Sablan said Friday only 1,900 of the 2,400 signatures submitted with the petition have been verified as valid. The rest were either duplicates or signatures by non-registered voters.

To be placed on the ballot, a popular initiative to amend the law must be signed by at least 20 percent of the registered voters. For this election, the threshold is about 2,400 signatures.

Sablan, who as a private citizen started the petition last year, said the Attorney General’s Office had given her and her supporters until Monday, July 21, 2008, to come up with the needed signatures.

“I am calling on all concerned citizens who want a more open and transparent Legislature to mobilize this week to help collect the 512 signatures that we need in order to get this initiative on the ballot. Every signature counts,” said Sablan.

In his letter to Sablan, Deputy Attorney General Gregory Baka noted that, even if Sablan collects the required number of signatures, legal issues must still be resolved before the initiative can be placed on the ballot this year.

The Constitution requires that initiatives to amend the Constitution or a general law be placed on the ballot at a regular general election. The current definition of a “regular general election” only includes elections held in odd-numbered years on the first Saturday of November.

For initiatives to be voted on this election, the Legislature needs to change the definition of “regular general election” or call a concurrent special election, Baka said.

While the Open Government Act applies to all other government agencies, the Legislature passed a law in 1994 to exempt itself from the act’s provisions. The petition calls for a law re-applying the government transparency law to the Legislature.

Sablan, a freshman lawmaker, said the Legislature’s current exemption from the Open Government Act is allowing lawmakers to call or cancel meetings and sessions at a moment’s notice, routinely change agendas, and regularly introduce bills and pass them without opportunity for public review. Under the current system, legislators can ignore or deny citizens’ requests for information without justification.

She also said previous attempts to reapply the Open Government Act to the Legislature through the legislative process “have ended in failure: legislation has been attacked, delayed, ignored, watered down, or otherwise subverted.”

“While the application of the Open Government Act to the Legislature may not seem like such a pressing issue to some at this time, especially in light of the severe fiscal, economic, infrastructural, and social crises we face, I strongly believe that it is precisely because of our deepening hardships that measures to stabilize the legislative process and make it more open to the public have become more crucial than ever. People need and deserve to know what their legislators are doing to tackle the many difficult issues of the day, and they have a right to be more involved in the political process,” Sablan said in a statement.

“I am convinced that it is up to the people of this Commonwealth to rise up and demand the transparency and accountability they deserve from their elected officials, and to take direct action to apply the Open Government Act to the Legislature through the popular initiative process,” she added.

Individuals interested in signing the petition or helping gather signatures may reach Sablan at 285-3935 or tinasablan@gmail.com.