Pubdate: Sat, 06 Jun 2015
Source: Press-Enterprise (Riverside, CA)
Copyright: 2015 The Press-Enterprise Company
Contact: http://www.pe.com/localnews/opinion/letters_form.html
Website: http://www.pe.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/830
Author: Cassie Macduff

MEASURE'S DEFEAT CAN'T SNUFF POT ISSUE

Supporters of a ballot measure that would have allowed medical 
marijuana dispensaries in Riverside blamed low voter turnout in the 
odd-year, June election for the measure's defeat.

Political scientists say they're right: Odd-year elections, with no 
high-profile races, attract fewer voters, and those who do vote tend 
to be older and more conservative. Not exactly marijuana's demographic.

Just 19.98 percent of Riverside's registered voters cast ballots in 
the June 2 election; 60.18 percent rejected Measure A. That's not 
unexpected, political experts say.

"Low turnout elections tend to be broadly conservative," said Shaun 
Bowler, UCR political science professor.

"Off-cycle turnout would be more homeowners, higher income, more 
conservative," said Karthik Ramakrishnan, professor of public policy at UCR.

Voter turnout among low-income, Democratic and liberal-leaning voters 
tends to be higher in November of presidential election years, 
Ramakrishnan said.

A Measure A campaign consultant,Derek Humphrey, put it this way: 
"November of an even year (versus) June of an odd year, Riverside is 
an entirely different city, electorally."

In June, young people who tend to be more liberal are studying for 
finals or just graduated and are headed out of town, Humphrey said. 
And young parents are wrapped up in their children's end-of-school 
activities or preparing for summer vacations.

Even if Measure A had been on the November 2014 ballot, there's no 
guarantee Riverside voters would have approved it.

The city's voters rejected Prop. 215, which legalized medical 
marijuana, in 1996 when it was on the California ballot. Statewide, 
55.5 percent of voters gave the Compassionate Use Act their approval; 
only 47.6 percent of Riverside voters did.

But approving marijuana dispensaries is a different matter from 
wanting patients to have access to medical pot.

Voters in cities throughout California are leery of dispensaries, 
said Ellen Komp, deputy director of CalNORML, the California branch 
of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, which 
favors decriminalizing marijuana use.

Voters in recent years have approved ballot measures regulating and 
taxing medical marijuana , but rejected ones that simply allow them, she said.

"If I had advised the people who were putting (Measure A) on the 
ballot, I would have suggested a tax as part of it, because 100 
percent of measures that have included a tax have passed," Komp said.

I wondered if Riverside's efforts to block Measure A, including suing 
the county registrar of voters to keep it off the ballot, prevented 
it from qualifying for the November 2014 ballot?

I asked City Clerk Colleen Nicol. She said petition signatures for 
Measure A were certified on May 16, 2014, qualifying it for the next 
regularly scheduled municipal election -- but that was June 2, 2015.

If the group had submitted signatures representing 15 percent of 
registered city voters instead of 10 percent, it could have required 
a special election between Aug. 30 and Sept. 14, or put it in the 
November general election, Nicol said.

Other advocacy groups have timed turning in their signed petitions to 
make sure they qualify for November, even-year elections, Nicol said. 
For example Measure L, which would have allowed more development in 
the La Sierra Hills, was timed by proposnents for the November 2014 
ballot, she said.

Measure A proponents also might have improved its chances by 
proposing tighter regulations; as written, Measure A left a lot of 
things up to trust.

Convicted felons could have worked in medical marijuana dispensaries 
and it would have been left it up to dispensary operators to verify 
that patients had valid prescriptions for the drug, according to a 
city analysis presented in a dozen meetings with civic groups before 
the election.

In the informational meetings (the city couldn't campaign against the 
measure), city officials also emphasized that the city wouldn't have 
been able to tighten Measure A's regulations without another vote of 
the people.

Attorney Jason Thompson, who drafted the measure for Riverside Safe 
Access, objected to the city spending taxpayer money to keep it off 
the ballot. He said it will have a chilling effect on future 
grassroots campaigns if people fear the government spending copious 
amounts of money to try to stop them.

I agree. Californians have a constitutional right to direct 
democracy, including citizen-led ballot measures. It was wrong of the 
city to try to thwart that. Ultimately, a judge ruled the voters 
should be allowed to vote on the measure.

Measure A won't be the last word on dispensaries.

State legislators last week passed a bill that would create an Office 
of Marijuana Regulation in the Governor's office to regulate and tax 
marijuana. (Cities and counties could still ban dispensaries, or license them.)

Several other bills to regulate medical marijuana are making their 
way through the Legislature.

And signature drives are being prepared for initiatives to be on the 
November 2016 statewide ballot (a presidential year election) that 
could legalize marijuana not just for medical treatment but for "recreation."

I hope the authors do a better job than the folks who wrote Prop. 
215. It was silent on regulation and taxation, and "notoriously vague 
and confusing," in CalNORML's words.

We don't need two more decades of court battles to clarify the people's intent.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom