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California Courts Give the Tribes and Extension on their Signature Collecting Deadline
By Jeff Osienya Jul 06, 2020 LegalityAfter vehemently opposing the California lawmakers’ sports betting amendment, the tribes have received an extension to continue pursuing their amendment. The state Superior Court has given them 90 more days to collect required signatures.The tribal casino operators in California have been allowed more time by the court to continue with their push for the introduction of a sports betting constitutional amendment in the upcoming November ballot. Judge James Arguelles of the California Superior Court in Sacramento gave the alliance of gaming tribes 90 more days to proceed with the gathering of necessary signatures that will put their proposed amendment – The California Sports Wagering Regulation and Unlawful Gambling Enforcement Act on the state ballot.
From the court’s ruling on Thursday, 2nd July, the 180-day deadline for collecting the minimum 1.1 million signatures has thus been pushed from 20th July to 12th October. A total of 25 California Native American tribes had tabled their petition to the court under an alliance dubbed The Coalition to Authorize Sports Wagering. The coalition appealed to the court on 9th June, indicating that the COVID-19 lockdown had interfered with their measures to gather adequate signatures within the initial 20th July deadline.
After Governor Gavin Newson issued a stay-at-home order in the Garden State back in March, it became unusually difficult to canvass state localities in person thereby curtailing the number of signatures they could collect. Moreover, according to the tribes, their signature-gathering campaign was quite close to completion before the Coronavirus restrictions were imposed by the state.
No Mean Feat for the Tribes
According to state law, such ballot measures can be taken to the ballot at a much later date, and so, even though the tribes have missed the June 25 deadline for the 2020 ballot, their measure will apply to 2022’s election. This also means that the tribal coalition won’t have to go back to square one in their signature-gathering campaign.
For amendments to be introduced in a state referendum, the Garden State’s Constitution also dictates that at least 8% of the population must agree to this amendment. Thus, based on the current population in the state, the tribes must, therefore, accrue over 970,000 signatures from state residents. As a contingency measure that will cover for signatures that may be rendered invalid for one reason or another, the tribes set a 1.1 million target to allow an adequate margin of error so that they can get their way nonetheless.
However, as rock-solid as the tribe’s plan is, it’s not going to be a walk in the park for them. According to the latest reports, their signature collection efforts after the Garden State’s Stage-2 reopening plan are still taking a hit. Even with the reopening plans in progress, the rate at which they are collecting these signatures is only 10% of what it was before the COVID-19 pandemic swooped in.
Even worse, there’s no way of gauging how much longer their signature collecting campaign will be affected given that the virus’s trajectory is largely unknown. For instance, since the Stage-2 reopening plans were implemented over a week ago, Gov. Newsom has had to reinstate some of the initial restrictions after infection cases were reported to start spiking again.
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