Two days ago we reported that Maryland Petitions expected to turn in 40,000 signatures for the petition drive to nullify in-state tuition for illegal aliens, but they actually turned in over 62,000!
From The Capital (Annapolis):
Opponents of the DREAM Act turned in 62,000 signatures to the state last night in hope of forcing a referendum on the new law.
That’s more than the 40,000 signatures organizers of the petition drive predicted earlier in the day and significantly more than the 18,579 needed to keep the drive alive.
The signature sheets will be distributed to local elections officials, who will verify the signatures over the next 20 days.
“The reason this is resonating with voters is because this is a bad bill,” said Del. Neil Parrott, a Washington County Republican who is leading the effort to put the DREAM Act to a public vote on the 2012 ballot.
The DREAM Act would allow students who are not in the country legally to pay in-state college tuition rates – first at community colleges, then at four-year state colleges and universities.
It was a divisive bill that split lawmakers during the recent 90-day General Assembly session in Annapolis.
Opponents of the bill hope to get the measure on the ballot, so that voters can defeat it.
All this costs money!
Organizers have relied on the Internet, promoting www.mdpetitions.com, a website that allows people to print out signature sheets. They’ve spent about $5,000 on the effort.
Also, be sure to read Ron Miller’s excellent column in Southern Maryland Online about our Constitutional right to petition our government. I learned that Frederick and Carroll County Commissioners have sanctioned petition collection in the wake of several publicized efforts to evict petition-gathering from public places.
Please contribute financially to the effort!
Everyone is working very hard and volunteering their time to collect signatures and process petitions, but this historic effort requires some funding. If you’ve been to headquarters it is readily apparent that large amounts of paper, envelopes, copier ink, postage stamps, boxes, etc. are all needed to get this Herculean task accomplished by the end of June.
Please consider sending a check made out to ‘MD Petitions’ to P.O. Box 32, Funkstown, MD 21734. Any amount is much appreciated (or if all you can do is a book of first class stamps, that is much appreciated as well!).
acorcoran
