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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An Independent Candidate Gets The Sigs, And Learns That Paid Is Cheaper Than Volunteer
Here is a Sacramento Bee item on an independent legislative candidate who got enough sigs -- some 21,000 to qualify for the ballot. This is rare (Former Long Beach Mayor Beverly O'Neill is one of a handful of politicians to make the ballot as a write-in in a significant election).
What's most interesting is what the candidate, Jim Fitzgerald, seems to have discovered during the process: paid signature gathering is effecitvely cheaper and more efficient. Fitzgerald started off with a volunteer effort to get the signatures, but, as those involved in the signature gathering game know, volunteer signature work is far more costly on a per-signature basis than a paid signature efffort. Fitzgerald went to a temp agency, according to the Sacramento Bee, and spent $30,000 to get the sigs. That's not bad by the way -- about $1.30 a signature. $2 a sig has become the default cost in many California signature gathering efforts.
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