Posted by
Katy Grimes on Friday, June 26, 2009 12:13:30 PM
Attorney General (Jerry) "Brown is either extraordinarily inept in his application of the law or extraordinarily brazen in abusing his authority. Perhaps he is both", said Senator Geroge Runner.
Almost 100 years ago, anti-corruption Gov. Hiram Johnson provided Californians access to direct democracy through voter initiatives and voter recall. These rights led to voter approval of Proposition 13, limiting property taxes, and voter recall of former Gov. Gray Davis.
But now the power of the people of California to change the law by gathering signatures and placing voter initiatives on the ballot is under siege by Attorney General Jerry Brown.
Recently, Jerry Brown engaged in both legal and semantic manipulation when he summarized my Vote SAFE initiative as "prohibiting citizens from voting."
In fact, Vote SAFE protects the rights of all registered voters including military voters. Vote SAFE expressly provides that no person shall be prohibited from voting for failure to display photo ID but shall receive a provisional ballot. The photo ID and provisional ballot requirement are based on an Indiana law upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court (2008). Tellingly, when Bill Lockyer was attorney general, he summarized a similar initiative as a requirement that voters display a photo ID, not as a prohibition against citizens voting.
It is particularly ironic that Brown has chosen to distort the purpose of a voter initiative designed to fight voter fraud. According to the United States Supreme Court, requiring voters to display photo ID is a reasonable state precaution against election fraud; according to Jerry Brown, requiring photo ID prohibits citizens from voting.