By: Rose Petsche FB: move to amend - brecksville
Brecksville Citizens for Transparent Politics – Citizens Initiative Petition
Action outline:
1) Start with a huge dose of passion
2) Tap into Move to Amend monthly calls
3) Identify your core group.
a. We ended up with about 20 core people
b. Pick a name as a group that represents your group
c. Set up FB page
d. Establish a regular meeting time & place
i. We had good appetizers & snacks, beer & wine – this helped keep people motivated. We always had a good time at our meetings
e. Establish email list –
i. Encourage members to email everyone they know in the city and invite them to the meetings. At a minimum include everyone you can on your contact list
f. I started blogging at Patch.com to alert the community to our activity
g. Never forget this is a NON-PARTISAN issue. We needed the whole community to be involved.
4) City Council strategy:
a. Ask group members to divvy up city council members
b. Call each member and ask if you can have a meeting. Follow MTA suggestions on this matter. PDF located in MTA Tool Kit https://movetoamend.org/organizing-local-action-toolkit-0
5) Mayor
a. Approach the mayor if you think they would be receptive to this idea.
6) Citizens Initiative Petition
a. If city council and the mayor won’t work with you, the next step is a citizens’ initiative petition – we were working in a hostile environment. Our city was dead set against our issue.
i. Draft your own citizen’s initiative petition. Search the MTA website for examples of petitions that might work for you, or ask us for ours.
ii. Check your city charter, local Board of Election rules and your State law for the requirements for drafting, filing, and circulating a citizen’s initiative petition.
iii. Pay attention to your City & Board of Election filing requirements in relation to the date of the election. This gets technical because there are a certain number of days required for each step of the petition validation process.
iv. Research how many signatures you will need to gather. Our city charter called for 10% of the votes cast in the prior presidential election. Our total was 7,000. We figured we needed 700 good signatures to be valid. We collected 1,176 of which 1055 were deemed valid by the board of elections.
v. Research local events that may host a speaker to talk about MTA & the petition
vi. Plan a kick-off party for initial petition drive – find a venue
1. Name tags
2. Clip boards
3. Collect signatures:
a. Use walking lists of registered voters – contact your local Board of Elections ask for a PDF file of registered voters so you can print your own lists. Our local Cuyahoga County Democratic Party printed our original walking lists & maps. The lists were broken down by precincts and included maps with each precinct.
b. Go door to door for every registered voter.
c. Stand at the library or rec center
d. Local shopping areas – may have to ask permission
e. Keep control of the amount of signatures collected vs. the total needed. Update the group frequently on the status.
f. Many people wanted to engage us on a political level. We were adamant about NOT discussing any politics one way or the other while out collecting signatures for our initiative!! This is so important that I can’t stress it enough.
4. Have enough printed petitions on hand
a. Keep a control listing of petitions
b. On the day of the kick-off we were out for 2 hrs.
5. Prepare a press release and distribute to all local papers announcing information about the kick-off party
6. Watch our video at FB: move to amend – Brecksville, which gives an example of how to ask for a signature on your petition. (Like us while your there!)
7. Make sure all signatures and addresses are legible. You are allowed to complete the address. We went over each petition to make sure all street addresses were clearly written. This helps the Board of Elections to validate each signature.
8. One thing I wish we had done was to have a place for a printed name and email address.
9. Once enough signatures are collected be aware that there are legal requirements as to when and how the petitions are to be filed with city hall. Contact the City for possible help on this. Check the City Charter and the City ordinances for rules that may apply. Also it helped us to have a few lawyers in our group. Make use of your local MTA contact with any questions you may have.
Board of Elections Approves initiative to appear on the ballot
1) Plan your strategy for educating the people of your ballot initiative
a. If you have lots of time before the election you can do a press release, speak to local groups contact your local PBS station and ask for an interview. Our interview with Sound of Ideas is here: http://www.ideastream.org/soi/entry/49812 there are 2 separate segments to the interview
b. We held an event at the local library. We had a presentation and a Q&A afterward. I’ve included a copy of our press release.
2) The month before the election we did 2 literature drops.
a. 1st lit drop we obtained a list of all voters who requested an absentee ballot, and left literature at their doors. (Example enclosed)
b. 2nd lit drop – we obtained a list of all voters who had not requested an absentee ballot and left literature at their doors. (Example enclosed). If you can obtain access to Vote Builder from the Democratic Party you will be able[1] to print your own lists. Otherwise I think you can access it from the BOE.
c. Election day: we had people at all polling places for the first 2 hrs. of the day and the last 2 hrs. of the day handing out fliers and asking people to please vote yes on Issue 25. Issue 25 was the ballot issue number assigned to the ordinance we proposed by citizen’s initiative petition. We held signs and handed flyers to anyone who was interested. We asked everyone as they approached if they knew about our non-partisan issue and if they wanted information.
Our final victory:
25 - Brecksville Proposed Ordinance
Vote for not more than 1
(WITH 11 OF 11 PRECINCTS COUNTED)
YES ...... 3,759 51.58
NO...... 3,529 48.42
Over Votes ...... 6
Under Votes ...... 1,221
One final thought:
Brecksville Citizens for Transparent Politics were the trailblazers in Ohio for this citizens’ initiative process. We took it one step at a time. This is a very doable goal. I know it may seem like a lot but we have left those who come after us with a blue print of how to accomplish the goal of getting an ordinance passed in your city. If you keep a positive outlook you, too, will have a great win!
Best of Luck
Rose Petsche
Brecksville Citizens for Transparent Politics
email:
web: https://movetoamend.org/oh-brecksville
facebook: move to amend - brecksville
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