Anti-Union Measure’s Defeat in Chula Vista is Final

The Chula Vista city clerk has officially notified supporters of an anti-union ballot measure that they have failed to submit enough signatures to qualify their initiative for the November ballot. The action makes the failure of the measure final.

The measure was aimed at stopping Project Labor Agreements on publicly funded projects. Interim City Clerk Donna Norris reported that 7,092 signatures were submitted in the permitted time window, well short of the 9,062 needed to qualify. Had election officials performed signature verification, the actual number of valid signatures submitted would have been far lower.

Earlier, proponents had lost a legal appeal to allow additional signatures to be submitted, because they had violated a state Elections Code provision requiring notice of a petition drive to be published in a local paper, and an affidavit of publication filed with elections officials within 10 days. The proponents of this measure filed their affidavit more than two months late, in violation of the law. The city clerk then properly rejected the petitions.