Signature gatherers, those charged with helping qualify initiatives for the ballot, are paid $1 or more for each signature they obtain.
Today was the deadline for submitting ballot signatures to qualify initiatives for 2014, and sadly two ballot measures (one for medical marijuana and one that would have legalized recreational use) both failed to get the required number of signatures.
Within days, Proposition 184 was on its way to becoming the fastest qualifying initiative in California history.
In California the result has been to push up the cost of qualifying an initiative into the millions.But even that is small change compared with the cost of the media campaign that ensues once a measure is on the ballot.
The area of admissible subject matters may be very restrictive; the number of signatures required for qualifying an initiative for a ballot vote may range from about 1% to one-third of eligible voters; and the time allowed for collecting signatures may be very short.
Rather than wait passively for clients (ie, sponsors who need the signatures to qualify their initiatives for the ballot), Mr Kimball came up with his own ideas for initiatives, then sought out someone rich to sponsor them.As his son, also called Fred Kimball, explained to The Economist, the pricing for signatures today is based purely on market conditions.
A number of groups are trying to qualify voter initiatives for the November 2016 ballot that would legalise recreational marijuana in California.
Another item on the GOP agenda was a bill that would make it harder to qualify citizen initiatives for the ballot.
On Monday morning, hours before the deadline to turn in the 86,105 signatures needed to qualify the initiatives for the ballot, the chief proponent and a leading foe unveiled a deal.
Now the oil and gas industry-backed group has turned its funds toward promoting the "Raise the Bar" initiative (Amendment 71), a direct attack on democracy that would make it more difficult for grassroots movements to qualify future initiatives for the ballot.
