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Initiative movement is down but not out
By
David Postman 9/23/02 Voters around the country will face fewer citizen initiatives this November than in the past 16 years. But does the drop mean the initiative bubble has burst? Is direct democracy a relic of the go-go '90s? The electoral version of Kozmo.com? There are still important questions to be decided in states that allow initiatives, including proposals to legalize marijuana in Nevada and slot machines in Nebraska, outlaw cock fighting in Oklahoma and bilingual education in Colorado, and boost school funding in California and Florida. Top five states
Oregon: 110 Colorado: 80 Washington: 49 Arizona: 41 Those two initiatives are the fewest in an even-year election since 1994. Washington hit its peak in 1996 with nine initiatives. The next-highest number was six in 2000. Citizen lawmaking is on a steep decline nationwide. This year, 53 initiatives are slated for ballots across the country, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Initiative and Referendum Institute. That's almost 32 percent fewer than in the general election two years ago. The decline in numbers has been steady since 1996. Initiative sponsors and supporters say they know why: the government. They say legislative regulation on signature collecting and court decisions that restrict petitioning and create strict guidelines for initiative drafting have combined to make it much harder to get initiatives on the ballot. "The beauty about our constitution is that the people have a way of voicing their opinion without picking up a gun or going to Olympia and storming it," said initiative activist Monte Benham. "Unfortunately the Legislature doesn't see it like that." Benham's group this year is promoting I-776, the ballot measure that would cut car-registration taxes. (Twenty-three states allow citizen initiatives. Washington is one of only five that allow initiatives in off-election years so statistics are tracked by even-year elections. The statistics include only citizen initiatives, not measures placed on the ballot by lawmakers or by voters as a referendum.) Initiatives on Washington's ballot
"I would say the initiative process is still alive and well," said Daniel Smith, an associate professor of political science at Denver University and author of the 1998 book "Tax Crusaders and the Politics of Direct Democracy." "We just may be over our little boomlet of the 1990s." Voters rally; lawmakers bristle Initiatives have gone in and out of favor since first appearing with a populist flourish in 1904. But they were never more popular than in the 1990s. There were not only more initiatives on the ballot than in any other decade but the rate of approval was the highest, too. During the 1990s, voters around the country set term limits for politicians, cut taxes, legalized medicinal marijuana, created three-strikes criminal laws and raised the minimum wage. In Washington, I-695 cut the state car-registration tax, taking with it $750 million a year in revenue. Education groups passed initiatives requiring more school spending, but no new taxes to pay for it. Lawmakers bristled under the increasingly active electorate, saying initiatives were making it difficult for them to do their job. There have been many attempts, none successful, to regulate the initiative process in Washington state. Other states have passed laws that shorten the time to collect signatures, require a geographic distribution of signatures, and restrict who can collect signatures. "There's a natural animosity lawmakers have toward the initiative process," said M. Dane Waters, president of the Initiative and Referendum Institute. The courts have also played an increasingly important role. Decisions in Washington and Oregon have made it easier for business-property owners to restrict petition circulators. There have also been rulings on drafting of initiatives. In 2000 the Washington Supreme Court threw out I-695 — which would have eliminated the state car tax and required voter approval of all new taxes — because it included more than one subject. That decision "sent a chill throughout the initiative world," Waters said. Other state courts have ruled initiatives unconstitutional on the same grounds. "It's particularly insidious because the single-subject issue can be raised after you win," said Douglas Bruce, a Colorado initiative sponsor who has battled in court to win approval of his tax-reduction initiatives. Bruce said there may be fewer initiatives this year because of those post-election court decisions. "It's wrong to demoralize people and make them feel their votes don't count and that their efforts at citizenship are for naught," Bruce said. "They do all this work and then the government says, 'Got you.' " Cyclical change Opponents of initiatives have also begun to focus on the signature-gathering phase, trying to keep measures off the ballot rather than mounting expensive campaigns during the political season. That is particularly true in Oregon, which has seen a steep drop in initiatives, with seven on the ballot this year, down from 18 two years ago. An Oregon court decision restricted where signature gatherers could work on private property. Psychological or social factors may be at work as well nationwide. After the Sept. 11 attacks, polls showed higher approval ratings for government. Now the anti-government fervor that runs through many initiative campaigns doesn't play as well. That jibes with another cyclical change. This year it appears fewer initiatives reflect the conservative agenda than in recent years. "Perhaps they have just run their course," said Smith, the Denver professor. "How many times can you limit spending? How many times can you reduce taxes? How may times can you enact term limits?" More issues this year are from the left side of the political spectrum. Nationwide, those include measures to boost school funding and universal preschool, reduce criminal penalties on drugs and raise the minimum wage. Any shift to the left is partially due to the initiative boom years of the 1990s: Legislatures became more conservative as they tried to head off voters taking matters into their own hands. "There's a definite awareness that you need to do something because if you don't, somebody else will and it's better to have something that is discussed in an open forum where the public has a lot of input," said Nebraska state Sen. DiAnna Schimek. Lawmakers say no more Even with initiative numbers dropping like the Nasdaq, lawmakers remain skeptical of direct democracy. The National Conference of State Legislatures issued a report in July that said "the initiative process has outgrown the existing laws that govern it" and recommended that no additional states adopt it. "Opportunities for abuse of the process outweigh its advantages," the group said. In states that allow initiatives, the task force recommended changes in how measures are drafted and certified, how signatures are collected, and called for increased financial disclosure from initiative sponsors. Waters of the Initiative and Referendum Institute said the decline in the number of initiatives on the ballot shows "it is a self-regulating process." That should give lawmakers around the country "some comfort and lessen their strong desire to additionally regulate the process," he said. "The sky-is-falling mentality has proven not to be true." |