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About this Blog
March 10, 2008 - 2:58pm — 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 BaltimoreSun, and his work has appeared in The New Republic, The Washington Post, and CondeNast Porfolio.
It's not just California. The Associated Press looks at how voter-approved initiatives are adding to the budget headaches in several cash-strapped states.
Submitted by CaliforniaScreaming on December 31, 2008 - 1:25am.
So hillarious that if initiatives were the problem of budgeting then why is the federal government $11 Trillion in debt? Wow and they did it all without initiatives. You guys against direct democracy loathe the constituents who you are supposed to represent.
Submitted by Joe Mathews on January 1, 2009 - 5:34pm.
California Screamin', Don't oppose direct democracy at all. Want to make it work better. Federal and state budget deficits are apples and oranges. But on the state level, it doesn't make sense to let voters approve extra-budgetary expenses, at least without showing how they should pay to it. It's bad when legislators do that, and it's bad when voters do that. Joe Mathews Irvine senior fellow, New America Foundation www.newamerica.net/blog/blockbuster-democracy/
So hillarious that if
So hillarious that if initiatives were the problem of budgeting then why is the federal government $11 Trillion in debt? Wow and they did it all without initiatives. You guys against direct democracy loathe the constituents who you are supposed to represent.
Not at all
California Screamin', Don't oppose direct democracy at all. Want to make it work better. Federal and state budget deficits are apples and oranges. But on the state level, it doesn't make sense to let voters approve extra-budgetary expenses, at least without showing how they should pay to it. It's bad when legislators do that, and it's bad when voters do that. Joe Mathews Irvine senior fellow, New America Foundation www.newamerica.net/blog/blockbuster-democracy/