Two decades ago when Californians fired the shots that launched a nationwide tax revolt, their weapon was the ballot initiative.
Since then, armed with initiatives, voters have banned affirmative action and allowed marijuana to be used as medication; backed the death penalty and rejected government services for illegal immigrants; raised the minimum wage and cut taxes.
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Come November they may even decide whether to ban the sale of horse meat for human consumption as part of a campaign whose slogan is “Just say neigh!”
Though 23 states, including Illinois, have the ballot initiative no place brandishes it with quite the flair, force and regularity of California.
As the use of the initiative grows, so does the debate over the wisdom of using it to fashion public policy. In the state that often leads the rest of the nation, this quirky, divisive way of enacting laws has acquired such political power that it is often called the fourth branch of government.
On Tuesday’s statewide primary election ballot, in addition to choosing the major parties’ nominees for governor and senator, voters will judge five citizen initiatives. They include whether to ban bilingual education in public schools, require unions to get members’ written permission to spend dues on politics and set limits on how much schools can spend on administration.
“The public feels and has always felt that state legislatures are inept and corrupt and incapable of doing a good job of deciding what’s in the public interest,” said Elisabeth Gerber, a University of California at San Diego political scientist who has written a book on the initiative process.
This was the prevailing mood in 1911, when California became the 10th state to vote to check government’s excesses through the initiative. Now, Gerber observed, “Voters have created a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy.”
Because of the tax restrictions of the California initiatives, especially the most famous of them all, Proposition 13, elected officials have less taxing authority and less money. At the same time, initiatives have limited the ways money can be spent.
Critics of government by proposition argue that the use of the initiative has exacerbated the state’s penchant for politics of the extreme.
Peter Schrag, the author of “Paradise Lost: California’s Experience, America’s Future,” argues that the initiative worsens the ethnic, economic and social gaps between the predominantly white voting population and the more diverse population of the state as a whole, who depend on many of the services that are being affected by the initiatives’ tax cuts.
Polls have found that many voters share his concerns, believing the process is flawed. They say initiatives reflect special interests’ concerns rather than their own. They are angry that many of the initiatives are delayed or overturned by the courts. And nearly three-quarters of voters say the propositions themselves are difficult to understand.
Nonetheless, Californians by a 10-1 margin approve of the ballot initiative, according to a statewide Field Poll last year.
Likewise, many believe Proposition 13’s mandate to set the limit on property taxes at 1 percent of assessed value is the reason California’s schools have declined and library services are so poor. Still, a vast majority of Californians support the measure, and polls show they would vote for it again.
Joel Fox, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the organization that takes its name from the father of Proposition 13, supports the initiative process. Since the watershed victory in June 1978, the organization borne from that movement has put eight more tax initiatives on the ballot. Three have passed.
“I think the initiative is a good safety valve for citizens,” Fox said. “The people should have the right to make some of these important decisions. I generally have faith in the voter to make important decisions that affect their lives.”
Since Proposition 13, the use of the initiative has grown, with 40 initiatives having passed since November 1978. Forty-two issues passed between 1911 and 1978, Schrag noted.
The essence of the initiative has changed too. As originally conceived, the initiative was meant to be a way for the people to check the power that entrenched industries of the day held over elected officials. Now, it is an industry in and of itself.
Kelly Kimball, the former president of Kimball Petition Management, one of the largest signature gathering companies in the state, has retired from the business and remains cynical about the process.
“If you look under the surface and see why initiatives are on the ballot, you’ll see they’re on the ballot for no other reason than to fail, to dry up money for a candidate, or to sink other initiatives, or to test out political strategies,” Kimball said. “It is not a pretty sight.”
For example, Kimball recalled that his firm led the successful campaign to get Proposition 37, which created the state lottery, on the ballot in 1984. The proposition was written by lottery companies and floated by consultants as a way to generate business in that election, he said.
The ballot initiatives require millions of dollars to make the ballot because the rules for a constitutional amendment require gathering signatures of 8 percent of California’s registered voters, about 680,000 people, in 150 days. As a result, paid signature gatherers or direct mail campaigns are a necessity, Kimball said.
“It’s not like somebody who is fed up can convince fellow voters to change the system,” Kimball said. “It’s a multimillion-dollar operation.”
Still, he said, he believes the initiative is a populist forum. “Ultimately populism wins the day,” he said. “But it’s the process to get to that Election Day that looks very professional, very special-interest oriented.”
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The initiative has allowed voters to take on term limits and campaign-finance reform, topics that elected officials often would rather not touch.
Of course, the legislative process contains moderating influences. Politicians, mindful that their opponents on some issues will be their supporters on others, will negotiate and seek compromise, a process that is not part of the initiative.