Ballot Initiatives

Now California's legislative leaders support Gov. Schwarzenegger's call for a special election in 2009, which came after a call by your blogger for just such an election. Memo to the consultants, pollsters, mail firms, etc.  who profit from ballot measures: As you're writing out your thank-you notes, please remember there is only one "t" in Mathews.

The Swing State Project has an excellent breakdown of the various Oregon ballot measures and their political prospects. Among the highlights: a measure that corrects a bizarre legal flaw that prevents people under 21 years of age from voting in school board elections. I disagree with the site's assessment of Measure 58, which would require English immersion for students instead of ESL. I think that will have broad-based support, not just from people on the far right. And for you political reformers out there, the site predicts a narrow defeat for Oregon's "top two"-style open primary measure, #65.

Supporters of bringing statewide initiatives and referenda to Connecticut are campaigning for a November measure that would establish a state constitutional convention with the goal of establishing direct democracy there. But big money interests, mostly on the left, are lining up against the November measure. The Associated Press explains.

The Arizona Daily Star offers up a long editorial on the need to fix the state's initiative process. It's timely. Three measures were knocked off the ballot because of invalid signatures and two others made the ballot despite questions about their signatures. What to do?

The Star offers two ideas, one bad and one good. The first involves getting rid of paid signature gatherers. The problem: volunteer drives are less efficient and more expensive, on a per-signature basis. That's why there hasn't been a successful volunteer petition drive for a statewide measure in California since 1982. True professional petition circulators are a safeguard against fraud. Eliminating them would create more problems than it solves.

The second idea is a better one: loosening the deadline. Arizona has a fairly tight deadline for getting signatures and qualifying for the ballot -- four months. That makes signature gathering more expensive and creates an incentive for fraud. If you want true grass roots signature gathering, the deadline should be lifted entirely. (On this second point, the Tuscon Citizen agrees).

I'd also like to see Internet signature gathering with security measures that allow for independent verification.

Today's LA Times story by my longtime colleague Evan Halper makes one thing painfully clear. California's Republican legislative leaders, for all their championing of direct democracy and the rule of the people when it comes to subjects such as Prop 13 (property taxes) and Prop 22 (same-sex marriage ban), are prepared to violate all sorts of voter-approved initiatives to get a budget deal and avoid a tax increase.

Halper got his hands on a memo that details what Republicans are talking about. As Halper recounts the memo's contents, the Republican proposals involve "diverting money specifically set aside by voters for local governments, road and other transportation projects, mental health programs and early childhood education." To give a little history, voters set aside money for transportation via ballot initiative with Prop 42 (2002), for local government with Prop 1A (2004), mental health programs with Prop 63 (2004), and early childhood with Prop 10 (1998). For Republicans to want to raid such funds is hypocrisy. To borrow against such funds in the name of opposing tax increases is dishonest. The act of raiding such funds creates a debt for the state that must be paid back. The very act of raiding the funds is thus a tax increase in disguise.

John Matsusaka of the Initiative & Referendum Institute at USC had an excellent piece on the state's budget problems. One important point he makes: the ballot initiative is not to blame for our budget troubles. He notes that the legislature would spend about half of the budget on education without Prop 98, and that all the other initiatives ever approved lock in only about 2 percent of the state budget. Matsusaka points to spending growth -- and the power of interest groups that demand more spending -- as the root of the problem.

Proponents of two Missouri initiatives to restrict the state's use of eminent domain failed to gather enough signatures to qualify the measures for the ballot, the Secretary of State ruled. But the proponents say valid signatures were ruled invalid, and are asking a court to put the initiatives on the ballot. The proponents say that the state tossed out signatures because officials wrongly believed the gatherer was not registered to vote.

The Aug. 26 state elections in Alaska are approaching. The political world is watching to see if indicted U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens can survive the Republican primary. This blog is watching  Ballot Measure 2, the Alaska initiative to bar the shooting of wolves from the air. (Aerial population control of grizzlies and wolverines also would be covered by the ban). But there are three other measures, one on gaming, one establishing public finance for campaigns, and a third, Prop 4, that would put new regulations on mines in the name of cleaning water. The Homer paper provides a rundown of the measures here.

In blockbuster democracy, there are always invalid signatures. People don't sign their own names. Forgery by gatherers can be a problem. Sometimes, people's signatures change over time, and no longer match registration cards filed decades ago. Or people mistakenly leave out part of their address, or sign on a petition from the wrong county. Some problems are to be expected. When initiative petition signatures are checked, about 70 percent of signatures will prove to be valid -- if the signature gathering operation was well run.

But in Arizona, the signature gathering efforts for multiple measures appear to have failed to meet that standard. According to the Arizona Republic, three measures appear to be in trouble. Two of them, one involving real estate transfers and another involving conservation, appear to have fallen short. A third, a transportation initiative, had so few valid signatures that it has failed to make the ballot. In random sampling, an estimated 42 percent of the signatures were invalid, suggesting that the people handling the gathering failed to do their job. Arizona's Secretary of State said that this was "among the largest overall invalid rates that I can recall ever seeing from a citizens initiative drive.” The initiative won't be on the ballot.

The above ad is running in Colorado. It attacks the well-known Amendment 47 (the Right to Work measure) and two other ballot initiatives supported by business and opposed by labor. Denver's ABC station does a fact-check of the ad here.

The ad is interesting for students of direct democracy because it criticizes the measures not for their content but for how signatures were gathered. For those who know the blockbuster democracy business, the most interesting part is the claim that people with criminal records  helped gather signatures. No kidding!