Citizens deserve a real say in the local initiative process

Political commentator Joel Fox surveys how current notions of direct policymaking is supposed to work in California, and finds that the system has been gamed by the wealthy and influential. He offers some thoughtful changes to recover the original Progressive vision for initiatives.

Real initiative reform thus starts with making our direct democracy more democratic. It should make measures more flexible, so they can be amended by the legislature (and are thus less attractive for rich people trying to lock in their preferred policy for generations). It should create more infrastructure to support deliberation and information (like the Citizens Initiative Review in Oregon). It should create paths to advance ideas to the ballot that don’t have big-moneyed backers (a citizens commission to review initiative proposals would be one-way to do that).

And real reform would separate ballot measures from our candidate races, so they don’t appear on the same elections. Instead, California should create dates each year when we vote on no more than three proposals for laws or constitutional amendments at a time; those dates should fit the legislative calendar, since voters in direct democracy are acting as legislators.
Most likely, Democrats will not introduce proposals like these. They will try to reduce time to qualify measures, or increase signature requirements. They may make it harder to pass measures, by introducing supermajorities or quorum requirements, as Joel accurately predicts.

But when they do that, let’s be ready to counter-attack hard—to show that politicians are behaving not merely in self-serving ways by limiting the process, but in self-destructive ones. Let’s remind the legislature that there are many ways and many models for improving the California process. And that they have the power to make direct democracy more democratic.

This article originally appeared in Fox & Hounds Daily.

Read the whole thing here:

Follow Opportunity Now on Twitter @svopportunity

Image by Frederic J Brown