For 99 years California has been blessed and cursed with the
initiative process. It is an exercise in direct democracy by which
the voters may pass laws and even state constitutional
amendments.
From 1912-20, the first decade when the process was
available, Californians voted on 40 of them. The number dropped
steadily from there to a low of nine from 1961-70. After that,
initiatives, fueled by professional signature gatherers, exploded
in the eighties to 56; 54 from 1991-2000; and then doubling from
2001-09 to 105. In all, Californians have voted on initiatives 377
times.
All it takes to get an initiative on the ballot is a draft
(accepted and titled by the Secretary of State), the gathering of
several hundred thousand signatures (the number varies from
election to election), and certification of the required number by
the Secretary of State. Signature gathering, alone, may cost upward
of $2 million. Once the proposition is on the ballot, a campaign
costing several more million dollars will be needed to get it
passed by the voters.
Nowadays, initiatives are the brainchildren of special
interests or very rich individuals riding hobbyhorses — and funded
by them. Proponents try to characterize and title them as “good
government” measures as American as apple pie. More than a few of
these become a curse on the electorate because they dramatically
increase the state’s bonded indebtedness or tinker permanently with
the state’s budget.
A decade ago, for example, voters passed an initiative to
mandate that approximately 40 percent of the state’s annual budget
must be devoted to education. Everyone wants a good education for
all children, so why not make sure there was enough money to pay
for one? The upshot is that the state legislature’s ability to
adopt an annual budget is greatly restricted. Ironically,
California is now in the top flight of states for teacher pay and
the bottom flight for student test scores. The voters clearly
didn’t get their money’s worth.
In 2008, voters finally passed a measure to take
redistricting out of the hands of the legislature (which, not
surprisingly, gerrymandered districts every 10 years to protect
incumbents) and created a citizens’ commission to do the job.
Approximately 30,000 Californians applied for a seat on the
14-member commission. There has been a thorough winnowing process
and the final names are expected to be announced shortly. This
commission will reapportion the legislature based on the 2010
census.
Alas, the blessing-curse element is at work on the
November 2 ballot. On the blessing side is Proposition 20 which, if
passed, will take redistricting of the state’s Congressional seats
from the legislature and give it to the Citizens’ Redistricting
Commission. On the curse side, however, Proposition 27, if passed,
would eliminate the new commission entirely and give the process
back to the legislature. Behind this retrogressive proposition is
the state’s most powerful special interest, the public employee
unions. The cushy pensions and high salaries of public employees
are a major contributor to the state’s on-going financial woes. For
this special interest, the legislature dominated by Democrats
beholden to them for political contributions is the goose that lays
golden eggs. They do not want an infertile goose.
