About this Blog
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.
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A Budget Is Passed, But It's Not Done
Both houses of the legislature passed the budget compromise, giving official sanction to a document full of billions in hidden borrowing and non-existent revenues. The document's budget reforms are also phony, an expansion of a current rainy day fund that has no real protections. I'm told reliably that the governor's top advisors want him to veto it. He should, if only to preserve some credibility on budget issues. It appears likely that the legislature would override his veto. Any lawmaker who votes for this should worry about being struck by bolts of lightning if he or she ever uses the words "fiscally responsible" again.
But even if the state has a budget, this budget fight won't be over. Democrats and activists on the left, after watching the minority Republicans stall an agreement, are beginning an effort to repeal the state's two-thirds super-majority requirements for passing budgets. This would require an initiative that likely would go to voters in 2010 (if not during a 2009 special election). Now comes news that SEIU, the largest union in the country, wants to back a ballot measure to reverse some corporate tax breaks that were part of the compromise. Assembly Speaker Karen Bass has put together a tax reform commission that could produce new ballot measures. At Fox & Hounds Daily, Joel Fox -- longtime initiative warrior -- sees new initiative wars on the rise. He's right, of course. This budget looks like the first skirmish in a much bigger political war.
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