Referendums

I have two suggestions that I would appreciate intelligent voters or intelligent politicians (are those last two words compatible?) addressing: Federal budget: Congress has for years ignored the law by not delivering its budget proposal on time. Yet, within my memory, presidents have met their legal obligation by presenting their budget proposals on time. Why not a constitutional amendment stating that if Congress is delinquent, the president's budget becomes law? Perhaps the president should have the freedom to give Congress one extension--if deserved in the president's opinion.

Cheers rang out in the marble hallway of the Maryland State House as Gov. Martin O'Malley signed a gay marriage law, before handing off the pens to gay members of the General Assembly gathered around him. "For a free and diverse people, for a people of many faiths, for a people committed to the principle of religious freedom, the way forward is always found for the greater respect of the equal rights of all, for the human dignity of all," the...

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he would go ahead with a referendum on a political plan that would implicitly recognize Israel even though the governing Hamas party firmly opposed such a vote. Abbas' office made the announcement after he failed in last-ditch talks to persuade the Islamic militant group to accept the principle of a Palestinian state alongside Israel in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem -- land Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War.

Aid agencies were unable to evacuate any people Saturday from a battle-scarred neighborhood in the central Syrian city of Homs, one day after the United States and other nations demanded that President Bashar Assad allow humanitarian aid into strife-ridden Syria. Among the injured still stranded in Homs' Baba Amr district were a pair of Western journalists, Edith Bouvier of the French daily Le Figaro and Paul Conroy of the Sunday Times of London. Both suffered leg injuries in a shelling attack Wednesday that killed two other Western journalists.

A referendum petition signed by more than 7,000 city residents who want to block a proposed 216-unit apartment complex was validated Tuesday by the Orange County registrar of voters. The victory for residents, however, may be short-lived. The city staff believes the petition has legal problems and is recommending that the City Council reject it at its meeting tonight.

A referendum March 20 will ask Taiwanese voters to demand that China remove hundreds of missiles aimed at the island, a presidential spokesman said. President Chen Shui-bian had said the referendum would not concern independence. China has viewed Taiwan as a renegade province since they split in 1949. It had threatened military action if the independence question were put to a vote.

A student vote on a referendum to raise money for athletic facilities at Cal State Northridge has been postponed until Nov. 9-10, an Associated Student Body spokesman said. If approved, students would pay an additional $27 in 2000 and 2001, increasing to $90 in 2002, to help finance construction of an 8,000-seat multipurpose stadium and other facility construction and renovation that could cost up to $30 million.

Ecuador's Congress approved holding a referendum on whether to create an assembly to rewrite the constitution, bowing to demands by leftist President Rafael Correa, who is seeking to weaken traditional political parties. Correa blames the parties for the Andean nation's problems. He called on Ecuadoreans "to fulfill their role in history, crushing the political mafias at the ballot boxes." Ecuador has been marked by political instability, with seven presidents in the last decade.

The Western Advisory Board of Actors' Equity has rejected a request to set aside a spring referendum that resulted in the adoption of a controversial Actors 99-Seat Theater Plan. In his letter Tuesday explaining the board's decision, Western Regional Director Edward Weston denied claims that the referendum ballot was unaccompanied by "a differing viewpoint," that the voting time was any shorter than that of any Equity election and that a secret ballot was not employed in the referendum.

A legal glitch has stalled the referendum efforts of a Tustin group trying to overturn the City Council's decision to change local election dates. The group has gathered more than 600 signatures for a referendum, but some members, including leader Berklee Maughan, have stopped collecting signatures after learning of potential legal problems with the referendum. City Atty.

Reporting from Sacramento and Los Angeles -- California voters will decide in November whether to repeal new voting districts for the state Senate, drawn last year by a citizens panel they created. Republican activists on Friday qualified a referendum on the issue. Elections officials determined that the group Fairness and Accountability In Redistricting (FAIR) turned in 511,457 valid signatures of registered voters, about 6,000 more than needed to put the question on the Nov. 6 ballot.

A chance shake-up of Maryland House of Delegates seating assignments brought Republican Wade Kach face to face with gay couples who had come to make the case for a gay marriage law, and might have proved decisive in its final passage through the state's General Assembly on Thursday. In an effort to get the bill onto the House floor, a special joint committee was formed and legislators were left scrambling for seats. Kach, who had previously backed attempts to define marriage as between one man and one woman, found a space right next to the witness table.

This castled city where highlands and lowlands meet has been fought over many times by the Scots and the English, never more bloodily than in the 13th century battle depicted in the Oscar-winning movie "Braveheart. " Now Alasdair MacPherson hopes to see this former capital of the kingdom of Scotland back in his countrymen's hands without a single shot fired. In the biggest test of British unity in decades, Scotland is on the verge of being granted the right to hold a referendum on whether to secede from the United Kingdom, putting asunder more than 300 years of marriage to England and Wales.

Even Greeks themselves had trouble tracking everything that happened on a day of whipsaw political swings in their country. Less than 24 hours earlier, they watched their prime minister stick up for their democratic right to a referendum before hostile European officials at a summit in France. But as soon as he returned home, George Papandreou called off his incendiary plan to let his people vote on Europe's latest rescue strategy for their debt-racked nation. One moment, the Greek leader commanded the "full backing" of his Cabinet; the next, he didn't.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou will keep his job, for the moment. Papandreou squeaked through a confidence vote in Parliament early Saturday, but only by indicating he would step down if necessary to allow formation of a unity government that would carry out Europe's latest plan to combat a raging debt crisis. Papandreou's narrow win, on a 153-145 vote, capped a roller-coaster week that saw him wreak international havoc by calling a referendum on that same bailout plan, a move he later retracted under heavy pressure at home and abroad.

Europe's latest plan to claw its way out of a monumental debt crisis lies in grave doubt less than a week after being cobbled together, following a shocking move to put the accord to a popular vote in Greece that threw both the government there and financial markets around the world into turmoil. Confounded officials, analysts and investors were left struggling to divine what they saw as Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou lobbing a grenade into Europe's attempts to keep his country afloat by calling for a referendum on the new rescue package.

Kenyans voted whether to approve a new constitution in a referendum that officials said went relatively smoothly. The draft charter had bitterly divided the nation and led to preelection violence that killed seven people. In a country where a third of the citizens can't read, voters marked a banana to vote yes and an orange to vote no. Opponents of the constitution won two out of the first three constituencies. An additional 207 constituencies had yet to report their results.

Black civil rights leaders, along with union leaders and corporations, warned that they would boycott a statewide referendum on bringing back the old Georgia flag with its large Confederate emblem. "Would you expect the Jewish community to participate in a campaign to raise the swastika?" said Joseph Lowery, former head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

The latest turn in Europe's financial crisis may dash any hope of taming the stock market's extreme volatility soon. Share prices took another tumble worldwide after the Greek government called for a voter referendum on the terms of the country's bailout by the rest of Europe. The unexpected announcement raised the risk of a thumbs-down by austerity-weary Greek voters. That could mean the end of Greece's membership in the Eurozone, and a disastrous default on the country's heavy debt obligations to the rest of the continent.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou is not normally the gambling type. Yet in the political equivalent of an all-in bet at a high-stakes poker match, the beleaguered leader said Monday that he would ask Greek voters to determine whether to agree to a new, hard-bargained European deal to help the financially strapped country get out of debt. "This referendum will be a supreme act of democracy and of patriotism," Papandreou said, apparently catching many lawmakers by surprise.