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Simple changes would help initiative process
STORY TOOLS 
More from OpinionFor almost 100 years, Californians themselves have passed this state's most important laws via the initiative process. Everything from limits on property taxes and insurance rates to regulation of coastal property use and forced posting of notices about possible toxic chemicals in the state's air and water are the products of initiatives.
So there's massive popular resistance whenever politicians grumble that the initiative process should go because it usurps their authority to make laws or when political science professors say the system causes more problems than it solves.
But that doesn't mean there are no problems with the system as it now stands. There are. Principally money.
Too much now goes into ballot initiative campaigns from too few hands, which has tended for the last 15 years or so to make propositions the property of large corporations, which currently have no limits on their initiative spending.
One result is that it's now possible for almost any special interest to place almost any question on the statewide ballot, if its backers want to spend enough money. With petition circulators often getting between 50 cents and $2 per valid voter signature they gather, their persistence in buttonholing voters with multiple proposed measures outside supermarkets and shopping malls is understandable.
But that doesn't mean the entire process should be eliminated, as some political science professors have suggested. They contend that a ballot like the one coming up this November, likely to include 10 or more initiatives, is too complex for the voters to handle in a knowledgeable way.
They're wrong. But the process still could stand some updating. Its essence hasn't changed since the pioneering Progressive Republican Gov. Hiram Johnson pushed it through in 1911. Initiatives — unlike propositions often placed on the ballot by the state Legislature — are still written by proponents, no matter how unskilled they might be. They are then named and summarized by the attorney general and are put to a simple yes-or-no vote if qualifying petitions get enough signatures.
Now, at last, a responsible, reasonable plan for updating the process and fixing some of its biggest problems seems possible. This plan was designed by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Governmental Studies, whose president, Robert Stern, has helped write several successful initiatives.
The most important thing the CGS plan would do is try to minimize the effect of corporate dollars on the process. Stern does not delude himself with the notion that corporate spending on initiatives can be limited. Courts have repeatedly found this unconstitutional, as spending on a political agenda is considered a form of free speech.
Rather, the CGS plan would limit to $100,000 what any one person or corporation can give to an initiative committee. It would also limit to $10,000 all contributions to initiative committees controlled by politicians. This would reduce the influence of committees with grossly misleading names like the late-1990s Californians for Statewide Smoking Restrictions, a tobacco-industry front that sought to get rid of local anti-smoking laws.
Companies could still spend all they want independently, but they'd then have to identify themselves as the sponsor of ads they run rather than hiding behind misleading or innocuous committee names.
The CGS plan also would extend the time limit for qualifying initiatives. Because many big-box stores now ban carriers of petitions they don't favor, it's hard for unfunded grass-roots groups to qualify measures for the ballot in the 150 days now allowed. Meanwhile, big-money interests can flood streets and parking lots with paid circulators, often spending $2 million or more just to qualify a proposal.
Extend the time to a year, argues Stern, and you'd give groups without much money a far better shot at getting their pet ideas onto the ballot.
Those are just a few of the fixes CGS proposes. Others would include allowing the Legislature to review all initiatives that qualify for the ballot, then suggest changes that could be accepted or not by sponsors. The sponsors would have the choice of proceeding with either their original measure or a revised one.
These changes would still not produce a perfect process. There would still be plenty of special-interest money involved and poorly drafted measures would still reach the ballot.
But things would unquestionably be improved.
Chances are none of these changes will ever be made by elected legislators, who often act as agents of the interests that provide their campaign dollars. So the odds are it will take an initiative to fix the initiative process.
And the sooner it happens, the better.
— Thomas D. Elias of Santa Monica is a columnist and author. His e-mail address is tdelias@aol.com.
Posted by cassandra2 on July 18, 2008 at 9:02 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Banning the mercenaries from carrying petitions would help enormously. Those who carry theirs for love and commitment to their causes are important to democracy. Those who get paid promote money as the prime mover of change instead of the public interest. We end up with deceptive ballot propositions and huge ballots that many will not even try to decide on, allowing propositions to be passed by a minority.
(Sigh.) I'm thinking about Haram Johnson. What happened to the Republican Party? What happened to our first Progressives like Johnson? People who helped ensure honest elections instead of preventing them with flawed voting machines and disenfranchising the poor and minorities. People who fostered honest government instead of the crooks that now own our federal bureaucracy. People who reigned in corporate power and abuses instead of enabling them?
What a tragic come down of a once honorable party.
Posted by cassandra2 on July 18, 2008 at 9:20 a.m. (Suggest removal)
My internal spell check was not working yet this a.m. It's Hiram Johnson, not my above spelling. It's also "reined in corporate power" not "reigned in."
Posted by Citizen on July 18, 2008 at 9:40 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Good article. I find the initiative process necessary because BOTH parties have failed. I would not single out the Republican party as wrong while holding up the Dems as righteous.
I better question would be - what happened to both parties. The party I knew of as the party of JFK and Truman is now beholden to the MoveOn.org types. It goes both ways. Opinions should not be so one-sided.
Posted by cassandra2 on July 18, 2008 at 9:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Opinions should not seek a fake balance when reality would dictate a one sided one.
However I am not a huge fan of the Democrats either and have quit them off and on several during the past five years.
As for Move/On, I thank the fates it exists. I think Eli Parisher and his young crew have down more to save democracy in America than any and all office holders.
Posted by Citizen on July 18, 2008 at 10:09 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Ok, while I find your opinion very far to the left, I respect it. I do not seek a "fake balance" but an understanding of opposing points of view. Losing the arena of ideas to hate speech will keep us in the same stalemate. I have visited the website and found it a venue for bashing all things Bush; hardly a forum for a diversity of ideas. I have yet to find a neutral forum of information, as the far right is at a loss as well.
Posted by cassandra2 on July 18, 2008 at 11:14 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Move/On is counter balance rather than balance, a counter to what comes from the corporate media.
It is an action site and has no pretense of presenting both sides. It is not a place to go for that but for an easy way to raise funds and direct action for the people who haven't access to big media nor big money.
Posted by Tom_Johnston on July 18, 2008 at 6:50 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The article correctly points out that the Initiative process in California has been turned upside down. Far from being the "peoples" legislative voice, it has become a "corporate" voice.
One thing I'd like to see, is a requirement that paid petitioners clearly identify themselves as such. Several County communities have moved to regulate "street vendors"...what are these petitioners if not vendors? They should be subject to appropriate regulation as should other vendors.
I think that if folks were approached, and the petitioneer had a badge that clearly ID'd their paid status, who is paying them, and how much they are paid for each signature...well, it might give some folks pause to consider what is being "sold" there before they sign.
Likewise, someone who is a real believer, a local citizen, who is not paid, clearly ID'd as a volunteer...THAT is what citizen democracy is about.
To put out an example....
Folks who read these boards will know I've carried on about VCORD. I don't like their initiative, I don't like their goals, and I do think they are a bit sneaky, but I will give them this. Within the context of their opinions they are GENUINE. They are real citizens of OUR community striving to put an issue out there, put it up to a vote. This is citizen action with all the glory and all the warts.
Ok, so not everything about VCORD is how I think it should be, whatever. I have to say that THIS is what the initiative process is about....not corporations spending vast sums of money. It's more about local folks spending not money so much, as sweat equity...working for their cause.
I think that is what the initiative process should be about.
Posted by cassandra2 on July 18, 2008 at 7:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I've talked to the paid ones, or tried to. Usually they are carrying some for free and some for pay, so labeling the petition gatherer as you suggest will get complicated, not that it couldn't be done.
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