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March 10, 2008 - 1:58pm — Joe Mathews

Direct democracy -- the Switzerland-inspired system of initiatives, referenda and recalls that allows voters to make and repeal laws in 24 states -- is poorly understood. It isn’t even very direct. Direct democracy has become blockbuster democracy: a half-billion-dollar international industry of signature gatherers, consultants, and election lawyers who use ballot measures less as a method of making law and more as a tool of mega-communications to boost some politicians, hurt others, and supplement lobbying campaigns.

Blockbuster democracy is a decentralized business that practices wide-open politics. This blog aims to provide a center of news, analysis and conversation for and about the industry. We will report from blockbuster democracy’s capital -- California -- but we’ll monitor ballot measures from across the country and around the globe.

Your Blogger: Joe Mathews is an Irvine senior fellow at New America Foundation; he writes about California, its history, its politics and its government. A journalist for the past 13 years, Joe was until recently a reporter in the Washington bureau of the Los Angeles Times. (He remains a contributing writer at the Times). He covered dozens of initiative campaigns, and published a book about Gov. Schwarzenegger and direct democracy, The People’s Machine, in 2006. He previously reported for the Wall Street Journal and Baltimore Sun, and his work has appeared in The New Republic, The Washington Post, and CondeNast Porfolio.

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AG Asks Court to Keep Gay Marriage Ban Initiative on November Ballot

Joe Mathews -

July 2, 2008 - 9:29pm

California Attorney General Jerry Brown, a likely candidate for governor in 2010, has indicated support for the legalization of same-sex marriage. But a recent lawsuit by supporters of gay marriage seeks to knock the initiative that would ban such marriages off the November ballot. One argument of the lawsuit is that the official title and summary Brown's office gave the measure is wrong, because of the Supreme Court decision legalizing such marriages.

The original title and summary said the initiative would not change state law and would not have any fiscal impact because the way marriages are conducted would not be altered; after the court decision legalized same sex marriage, that was no longer true.

But that title and summary were written months before the court decision. In an amicus brief filed with the court, the attorney general's office defends itself along these lines and argues that an initiative cannot be thrown off the ballot because a subsequent court decision changes its meaning.