Organizers of an initiative to end the use of the death penalty in California announced last week that they have obtained enough signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot, the California Catholic Conference reported last week.Meanwhile, the effort to gather signatures for the parental notification initiative, which has not released totals yet and has until the end of April to submit signatures, continues.
In a prepared statement, Auxiliary Bishop Gerald Wilkerson of Los Angeles, CCC president, congratulated the SAFE California campaign upon reaching their goal of collecting enough (800,000) signatures “to assure there will be a proposition on California’s November ballot to replace the death penalty with the sentence of Life without the Possibility of Parole.
“Now, in November, California’s voters will be offered the chance to make this prudent, life-affirming, safety-enhancing and cost-savings change in sentencing law. Moreover, passing this initiative will prevent the execution of an innocent person.
“We look forward,” Bishop Wilkerson said, “to the SAFE California campaign as a time when the voting public can learn of the wisdom of replacing the sentence of death with the sentence of life imprisonment.”
The petitions have been given to the Secretary of State who certifies that the initiative has enough signatures to appear on the ballot. SAFE California submitted 800,000 signatures, far more than the 504,000 needed to qualify.
Signature-gathering continues to place the "Parental Notification, Child and Teen Safety, and Stop Predators Act," a proposed ballot initiative seeking a California constitutional amendment requiring that a physician notify a parent at least 48 hours before performing an abortion on a minor girl under the age of 18.
The initiative proposes that the state has "a compelling interest in protecting minors from the known risks of secret abortions." For information, call (855) 263-2254 or visit www.caparentalrights.org.
