Blocking Campaigns

John Fund writes in the Wall Street Journal that the left is waging a war on direct democracy by attempting to obstruct gatherers for conservative initiatives. There's some truth in the argument, but it goes too far. Blocking campaigns of the type Fund describes have long been part of the initiative game. Experience and academic studies show they're ineffective. And a lack of organization and money in the Connerly camp is a big part of the reason for the failure of the anti-affirmative action measures.

The real war against direct democracy is a bipartisan one, and it's being waged by elected officials who, in the name of "cleaning up" signature gathering, change the law to make it harder to gather signatures. These laws usually restrict "out of state" gatherers (petition circulators are a traveling army, so almost everyone who knows how to do this is at some level "out of state") or limit the time to gather sigantures (a true liberal, democratic form would extend or even lift deadlines to permit community groups or true grasroots organizations to gather signatures over the period of a year or more).

Mike Antonucci at the Education Intelligence Agency, which monitors teachers' union, is mad about this story in the Las Vegas Sun. It's a story decrying a blocking campaign launched against a teachers union initiative petition in Nevada that would raise taxes on gaming to provide more funds for education. Antonucci points out that the teachers' union has supported its own blocking campaigns over the years. I'd make a slightly different point: blocking campaigns aren't news. They don't do very much, except slightly raise the cost of gathering signatures. And they are probably a waste of time for those interests who mount them.

SHOW ME STATE BLOCKING CAMPAIGN: The blockbuster democracy world is afire with reports that Lee Albright and his firm National Petition Management have been hired to lead a blocking campaign against the signature gathering for Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action initiative in Missouri. The Wall Street Journal publishes an opinion piece that provides a decent overview -- but with an over-the-top spin that suggests that blocking campaigns are way out of bounds.