Well the signatures have all been turned in.  The petitions to legalize Medical Marijuana, offer paid sick leave to all employees, and the  two different initiatives regarding abortion have been submitted to the Secretary of State’s office and now we sit back and wait.  

Wait to see if each issue had enough legitimate signatures to put them on the ballot.  Wait to see if there were any court challenges to block voters from having a say.  Wait to see if people were actually lied to about what abortion petition they were signing.

It seems like you couldn’t go to any event this spring without having someone with a clip board asking you to sign something.  There were three abortion petitions, a school initiative, paid leave, tax reform, and the third times a charm petition for medical marijuana. Not all of them got enough signatures to submit to Robert Evnen.

They say the petition process is supposed to be the voice of the people.  But is it really? The petition process seems to be the voice of the rich.  The rich donors that can afford to pay the petitioners for every signature.  And petitioners that in many cases could care less about getting an important problem solved by the voters than they do about turning in a bunch of signatures for a paycheck.  

Remember when Pete Ricketts and his father wanted to reinstate the death penalty for political purposes?  Was that really the voice of the people or the voice of the Ricketts who didn’t like what Ernie Chambers was able to get through the Unicameral? They put in hundreds of thousands of dollars to get that on the ballot.  The voters voted it in and all these years later only one person has been executed by the state.  There is no outcry from the public for more executions. The voice of the people has been silent on this issue for years. But the voice of the rich got what they wanted.

Sometimes the voice of the people is so loud that it can get the job done without a lot of cash behind it. 

Crista Eggers spearheaded the medical marijuana drive for the third and, she says, final time.  The first time, they had more than enough signatures, but the Nebraska Supreme Court had the petition voided when they said it wasn’t worded properly. The Secretary of State and numerous lawyers looked it over and said it was worded properly, but the Court overruled them.  The second time, they tried a major donor but was not able to fund the drive and despite a valiant volunteer effort they came up short.  This time with minimal funding and an organized volunteer base they were able to gather enough signatures with some extra padding, but will it be enough?  We’ll have to wait and see.  

An education petition that has until 5PM July 17th has many teachers on the streets trying to get signatures.  I’m not sure if any of them are getting paid or not.  I  know the ones I spoke with were passionate about public education and were involved in the field in some capacity.  

Other petition drives like the one for radical tax reform or the one that would consider a fetus to be a fully developed human at the point of conception failed to get the necessary signatures.  Supporters of both issues say they will be back.  

The Secretary of States office has a lot of signatures to verify. It could take a while before we know for sure if we’ll have a shot at voting for social issues that are important to us.  I’m guessing if all these petitions are valid, we’ll be seeing a lot of TV ads for medical marijuana, pro-choice, anti-abortion, and pro and con ads about public schools.  I’m not sure how the sick leave issue will play out.  Maybe business organizations will run ads condemning it.  Or maybe they’ll just leave it alone.  

Regardless, come November, the voices of the heavily funded special interest groups will be heard.   And then on election day the voice of the people will really be heard. 

We’ll just have to wait and see how it all turns out. 

Tom Becka is a long time Nebraska broadcaster who for over 30 years has been covering Omaha and Midwest issues on both radio and TV. He has been a guest on numerous national cable and news shows, filled in for nationally syndicated talk radio programs and Talkers Magazine has recognized him as one of the Top 100 talk show hosts in the country 10 times. Never afraid to ruffle some feathers, his ‘Becka’s Beat’ commentaries can be found online on Youtube and other digital platforms.

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