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Irvine : Initiative Ordinance Passes First Reading

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A divided City Council has tentatively approved a new law that backers of an ill-fated ballot measure say is designed to weaken the initiative process.

In a 3-2 vote Tuesday--with council members Larry Agran and Barbara Wiener dissenting--the council passed a first reading of the ordinance, which would require the city attorney to give titles to ballot initiatives and to also draft initiative summaries.

The measure will come before the council for a final vote Sept. 24.

Although the proposed law does not specifically mention a petition drive earlier this year that called for a citywide vote on freeway funding plans, backers of the so-called “Citizens Right to Vote” initiative say the ordinance is aimed at them.

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Signed by enough Irvine residents to qualify for a special election, the initiative was declared invalid by an Orange County Superior Court judge last month after a suit was filed by a coalition of local businesses to block its inclusion on the November ballot.

Bill Speros, chairman of the Committee of Seven Thousand, which spearheaded the initiative, told the council before the vote that the proposed law “may be an attack from a different angle.”

“The people of Irvine are well-educated, well-read and politically aware,” he said. “I feel insulted that we cannot title our own initiatives.”

However, council members Sally Anne Miller and David Sills argued that if petitions are titled and summarized by the city attorney, they will be free of deceptive language.

Miller said the freeway-funding initiative’s title--”Citizens Right to Vote” --was “misleading” because it made people think they were signing a petition to protect their right to vote instead of one calling for an election on transportation corridor fees. “Who wouldn’t want the right to vote?” she asked.

Sills called the proposed law “a meaningful piece of election reform” that would require petition backers to practice “truth in marketing.”

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Councilman Larry Agran, a co-author of the now-defunct initiative, accused the council of being full of “sore winners” and said later that the ordinance would “provide politicians who want to put their grubby hands on the initiative process one more opportunity to frustrate the will of the people.”

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