Word: referendum
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...20th century, movements had sprung up on the right and the left to set term limits and nearly every referendum on the issue passed by a 2-to-1 vote. "Term limits sever from time to time the natural comfortable tie between members and special interests in their district. They bring government closer to the people and improve citizen access to the process," says Philip Blumel, president of U.S. Term Limits, the largest advocacy group in the field. (See "Washington's Time for Bipartisanship: Retirement...
...Sudan's other great unresolved conflict - between Khartoum and the south of the country - another kind of election, a referendum, on whether to secede from the north, is due next year. The north and the south have fought two wars in the last half-century that have killed 2 million people, and an overwhelming majority of southerners are expected to opt for their own independent state. The approaching reality of that separation seems to have persuaded Sudan to accept what previously provoked them into war. Last month, Bashir announced that if the south did vote...
...pillars of this centuries-old voting tradition are initiatives and referendums. An initiative is a proposed amendment to the constitution, which can be brought to a national vote only if the sponsors gather 100,000 signatures. (For the animal-lawyers initiative, supporters collected 144,000 signatures.) A referendum, which requires just 50,000 signatures, is a vote on whether to accept or reject laws made by parliament, like when the public overwhelmingly approved the decision to renew Switzerland's heroin-distribution program in 2008. "They are powerful instruments for launching new laws and correcting policies, and they are an integral...
...House is counting on that fact to try to make the Republicans' refusal to even consider supporting some moderate proposals on tax cuts and deficit commissions a liability in the fall. Last week, a senior Administration official said, "We will not allow the next 10 months to become a referendum on Barack Obama...
...same-sex couples in California brought their challenge to the state's gay-marriage ban before a federal judge on Jan. 11, the latest step in a contentious legal battle that will likely lead to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case--concerning the voter-approved 2008 referendum known as Proposition 8--is already setting some unusual precedents. The plaintiffs are represented by Theodore Olson and David Boies, the star litigators best known for arguing on opposing sides in the Supreme Court case that decided the 2000 presidential election. The trial could also be one of the first federal proceedings broadcast...