Initiatives

For more than a century, Oregon has led the country in direct democracy, with the state’s voters confronting more initiatives than other Americans. In recent years, Oregon has conducted a thorough debate over the process, and taken historic steps to build a citizen-based infrastructure for direct democracy.

The 2010 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy (full disclosure: I was co-president of the event) finished up last week in San Francisco after five nights and days of discussion of initiative and referendum around the world.

While there were many disagreements, one verdict of those in attendance was crystal clear: American direct democracy moves too fast for its own good.

I've spent the past two days in Northern California playing host to a group of two dozen foreign scholars and practitioners. They are early arrivals to a free, public event that starts Friday night in San Francisco, the 2010 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy. (Full disclosure: I'm co-president of the event with a Swiss-Swede journalist named Bruno. Long story).

The Assembly recently passed legislation that, over a six year period, would raise the current $200 fee for filing ballot initiatives at the attorney general’s office up to $2000.

The legislation addresses two real and related problems, but in a way that reinforces the worst features of the state’s initiative process.

The world has been watching California’s political and fiscal troubles, and the world is blaming our direct democracy.

So wherever there’s talk of expanding the rights of people to decide on laws or constitutional amendments, a new criticism ring: Let’s not let our country/province/city become another California.

California is hardly the only place where voters, through initiative and referendum, make important decisions about government. As the state struggles with persistent budgetary and political problems, the world has been watching, with a combination of wonder and horror. What do direct democrats around the world think as they look at California? What might California learn from the world about its direct democratic system? And what might the rest of the world learn from us?

Not the 21st century, mind you. But South Dakota, where American direct democracy began in 1898, is considering whether to change its woefully outdated laws that permit initiative sponsors to write their own descriptions of what their measure would do. In the world outside South Dakota, titles and summaries have been written by public officials who are supposed to be neutral. (In California, it's the attorney general). More details of the proposal from this story in the Mitchell Republic.

Last fall's initiative campaigns in Colorado saw an extraordinary change in the ballot at the last minute. Labor unions agreed to withdraw from the ballot a package of initiatives that targeted businesses in exchange for a promise by business groups to contribute to a labor effort to defeat three business-backed initiatives. The four labor-backed measures technically remained on the ballot, but under Colorado law, without the support of their labor sponsors, the initiatives were a dead letter. The votes cast on those initiatives didn't count.

In the United States, ballot initiatives usually appear "naked" on the ballot. That is to say, voters decide yes or no on a particular statute or constitutional amendment, and that's it. There's only one choice.

There's a lot of talk about new ballot measures circulating in California and other Western states. The California Teachers Assn., for example, has approved circulation of its initiative that would hike the state sales tax to create a new, protected fund for schools. But that initiative isn't in petition circulators' hands yet, according to a survey I conducted this morning. In fact, signature gatherers appear to be in wait and see mode. There are a handful of local measures.