State ballot initiative fee raised to $2,000 to prevent mischief

Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill Tuesday that raises the fee for filing ballot initiatives from $200 to $2,000 in an effort to discourage what has become a plethora of over-the-top measures in recent years.

The $200 filing fee, unchanged since 1943, has been too small of a price to pay for satirists and cranks intent on using the initiative process for making outrageous statements.

A Southern California woman countered with the “Intolerant Jackass Act,” requiring people who propose measures to murder gays and lesbians to attend sensitivity training.

A San Jose man advanced the “Shellfish Suppression Act,” which would have made the sale or consumption of shellfish a felony with heavy fines or imprisonment.

The bill originally called for raising the filing fee to $8,000, but the state Senate was reluctant to raise the price that much and revised it downward.