November Ballot to Include Petition Signature Requirement

Caption: Martha Hampel, community activist. A photo of Caroline Dieterle appears in a Press-Citizen Writers' Group article linked to Dieterle's name in the last paragraph below.

In November 2016 Iowa City voters will have an opportunity to vote on how many signatures the city should require to bring a valid initiative/referendum issue to the city council's attention for council passage or placement on a city election ballot. As part of its 10-year periodic review of the city charter, the charter commission increased the number of valid signatures required for initiative and referendum petitions from 25% of the number of people who voted in the last election -- but no fewer than 2,500 -- to no fewer than 3,600.

Iowa City's requirement is in stark contrast to the number of signatures required on petitions by the Code of Iowa, which is 10% of the number of people who voted in the last election. Considering voter turnout, which is disgracefully low, 10% is often a far lower number than the 3,600 valid signatures the City of Iowa City requires today. The movement to reduce the number of valid signatures required to bring an initiative to the Iowa City Council’s attention and put it on the council’s agenda is more democratic, in my opinion.

To get 3,600 valid signatures, petitioners must come up with 4,000 or more signatures to compensate for the invalid signatures that are bound to appear (persons who live outside the city limits, use post office boxes for mailing addresses instead of street addresses, and so on) on any petition.

There’s no reason to make it harder for citizens to petition the city council than the Code of Iowa (Chap. 362.4) requires. It’s not as though a valid petition with the requisite number of valid signatures has the force of law. It only causes the council to enact the ordinance as the petition requests or to put the question raised by the petition on a ballot.

The 13 areas of city government precluded from initiative and referendum by the city charter (for example, zoning, levying of taxes, city budget) insure that the council will not be inundated with petitions.

Martha Hampel and Caroline Dieterle have led the struggle to lower the number of signatures required to file a valid petitions in order to bring issues to the city council's attention and thereby make government more accessible to everyone.