State Restriction Kills Option Of Ballot Question

By John Voket

In the end, it was a missed deadline that defeated any possibility of including an advisory question on the April 27 local budget ballot. And as a result, all Legislative Council members on hand April 14, including the three Independent Party of Newtown council members who championed the cause of adding a question to the ballot, voted against the proposal.

Those councilmen, Kevin Fitzgerald, James Belden, and Gary Davis, learned along with the rest of the council officials in attendance, that by statute, the Secretary of the State’s office requires that questions be submitted to the state for review a minimum of 45 days before they are to appear on a ballot.

While that point seemed to be the main motivator that spurred the unanimous vote — council Vice Chair Mary Ann Jacob was absent — Town Attorney David Grogins first reviewed the results of research, which generated a legal opinion on the matter.

He told the council that absent a local charter authorizing such action, that there was no vehicle in state statutes permitting advisory questions. The town attorney cited a case where the Secretary of the State’s office rejected a local ballot with an advisory question on it.

Mr Grogins furthermore told the council that through his research, he became even more concerned about the current effort in Newtown, because the placing of a question could create an opportunity for a voter to overturn the entire budget vote.

In the event even a single voter contends that a ballot question created undue influence on the vote’s outcome, in effect contaminating the vote, the question of the integrity of the referendum’s outcome might be invalidated at the state level.

“I don’t believe it can be done legally,” Mr Grogins said.

Additional discussion centered around the difference between “local questions,” which are permitted currently under the Newtown Charter, and “advisory questions,” which are recognized and permitted under strict qualifications by state statute.

Mr Grogins said he wanted to do further research to build a case precisely defining the difference between the two. It was his impression based on his existing research that a local question, if endorsed by the voters, delivered specific results.

The town attorney cited approving the purchase of a fire truck, or determining if a town should ban smoking within its jurisdiction, as examples of an outcome-based local question. While Mr Davis tendered wording of a budget-related question he felt satisfied both the current local and state requirements, Councilman Richard Woycik argued that Mr Davis’s example would still deliver an advisory directive, and therefore would not technically meet the “local question” requirement in Newtown’s charter.

In the end, much of the wording in the town attorney’s latest opinion was summarized in the motion by council Finance Committee Chair Ben Spragg who moved that the placement of advisory questions on the April 27 budget ballot be rejected. After about ten minutes of further discussion, the motion was amended by Mr Davis, to include the fact that the deadline for placing the question on the ballot had passed.

The vote on that amendment was opposed by council members Jan Andras and John Aurelia. It was also Mr Aurelia’s questions on a subsequent motion made by Mr Davis that caused the council to unanimously agree to table the effort until there was adequate time for Mr Aurelia to review the issue.

Mr Davis proposed the council vote to support creating the legal authority via a charter change, which would then permit local questions to be placed on Newtown’s ballots.

While it appeared most of the council was willing in spirit to support initiating a charter review, and seating a committee and charging its members to review the matter, any vote on a number of revisions and amendments outlining specific language of the motion was tabled after Mr Aurelia requested time to review Mr Davis’s proposal.