☆ Perspectives (part 3): Why AGs/city councils disguise undesirable ballot measures with enticing language
Image by Marco Verch
Local political watchers have a warning for SCC residents: All those nice-sounding words in ballot initiatives could be camouflaging their real intent. Why the subterfuge? Maybe pols “think we're too stupid to understand what's good for us... like how you give a dog a pill and cover it in peanut butter,” says Manhattan Institute's Tim Rosenberger, Jr. Or perhaps they're simple money/power grabs, according to taxpayer advocate Jon Coupal and SCC Libertarian officeholder Brian Holtz. Below, more insights in this exclusive Opp Now series.
Tim Rosenberger, Jr., Manhattan Institute legal policy fellow:
This kind of thing happens a lot in California. Personally, I'm very interested in what's motivating it. I think there's two theories you could have about what's going on—both bad. Here's the less bad one: These initiatives are really good for us as California residents, but the powers that be think we're too stupid to understand what's good for us. It's like how you give a dog a pill and cover it in peanut butter. They think residents must be tricked into doing something good that advances our own interests. I'm skeptical of this theory.
Here's the more likely theory: It appears to be—and you see this in the examples from the first article—that these ballot initiatives increase the government's power to the expense of everything else. Allowing appointees to serve on commissions longer, taxing more things, creating entities that have greater power over Californians' lives—the powers that be know that people don't actually want to further empower government. So the only way through is to create duplicitous ballot names.
It's interesting, too, because state-level initiatives are subject to a public review overseen by the Attorney General. So at least in theory, they could be kicked back and revised if they would mislead voters.
Jon Coupal, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association president:
Even progressive media has recognized that the ostensibly “objective” title and summary has been manipulated for political purposes. I've seen stories in the Sacramento Bee and Chronicle about how the ballot label process has been politicized by the last several Attorney Generals.
I think the important thing to remember is that arguments in favor of or opposed to an initiative should be in the arguments section, but the ballot label and the summary are supposed to be—we'd claim there's a fiduciary obligation on part of the AG to be—as objective as possible. But this is clearly not the case now.
And thinking about measures on the local level, they're often prepared by the city council or county attorney. And these people always want more money. So we rarely get honest ballot measure titles at the local level.
One statewide example is Prop 15, a split-roll initiative that would have weakened Prop 13. Rather than titling it as the massive tax increase it was, proponents designated it “The California Schools and Local Communities Funding Act of 2020.” Funny how the word “tax” didn’t appear in the label.
Citizens should be aware that the Taxpayer Protection & Government Accountability Act, which is already qualified for the November 2024 ballot, is being subjected to a spurious legal attack by the Governor and the legislature. One of the Act's provisions would require tax increases to include “tax increase” in the ballot label. We think this transparency label is very important and could prevent similar deception moving forward.
Brian Holtz, Libertarian Party of Santa Clara County secretary, La Purissima Hills Water District elected director:
Those who consider direct democracy the best form of governance are naively overlooking the crucial power of agenda-setting. Aided by modern polling and opinion research, those who write ballot measures can easily put their thumb on the scale.
An egregious example is 2022’s Measure A, which asked: “Shall the measure amending the Santa Clara Valley Water District Ordinance 11-01 to limit Board members to four successive four-year terms be adopted?”
No doubt only a minority of voters realized Measure A would actually increase directors’ limit from 12 years to a whopping 16. So despite the press pointing that out—even quoting one of those very directors as deeming the language “intellectually dishonest”—the measure eked out a win. SCVWD incumbents can now pursue even longer tenures (read: more power).
A popular Libertarian test to justify designating actions as crimes is whether they impose force or fraud on another. Libertarians may diverge on term limits, but we agree that ballot titles’ being so flagrantly misleading as to border on fraud threatens the election integrity required for our government “by the people.”
Related:
Perspectives (part 1): SCC's longstanding love affair with misleading measure titles
Perspectives (part 2): CA's ballot measure wizardry confuses voters
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