Ballot initiatives sometimes are not just measures. They're cottage industries, with sponsors filing the same or similar initiatives all over the country. Think of term limits, or eminent domain protection, or the Humane Society's many animal protection measures. 

Now there's a new genre coming: the preservation of "secret ballot" union elections. The context: Unions have long complained -- with good reason -- that the current system for organizing workers gives corporations too much power. That process is built around secret ballot elections, but the process has such loose time limits and allows for endless legal appeals -- and the intimidation and firing of workers in the meantime -- that unions have soured on the secret ballot. In its place, labor wants federal legislation called the Employee Free Choice Act. Backed by Democrats, including President-elect Obama, EFCA would allow unions attempting to organize a workplace to win formal recognition without a secret ballot vote. They would have to gather signed cards from a majority of people in the workplace -- a process generally known as card check. Some employers currently choose to recognize unions who gather cards, but most insist on the secret ballot election. It's their choice. EFCA would flip that, giving the unions the choice -- cards or secret ballot -- in how they organize a workplace.

... AB 2386, the legislation sponsored by former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and called "The Secret Ballot For Farmworkers" bill. The legislation passed the Senate Monday, 23-15. It's headed to the governor's desk, where it could face a veto. There is a strong argument for the legislation, but the bill's name is highly deceptive. Or to put it another way, the bill would do the opposite of what the legislation's name might suggest. 

California farmworkers already have the right to decide via secret ballot whether they want to be represented by a union or not. This has been true since the Agricultural Labor Relations Act passed in 1975. And while federally supervised secret ballot elections are the law for almost all workers, farmworkers in the Golden State have a better set-up for these elections than almost anyone else. Loose deadlines and language in the National Labor Relations Act have permitted companies in most industries to delay such elections for months if not years. Companies often use that time to fire workers who are leading the organizing or otherwise intimidate workers. In California, the ALRA guarantees farm workers -- once union cards are in and certified -- only a seven-day wait before the election is held. Farmworkers face sophisticated anti-union campaigns like other workers, but these campaigns are shorter because of ALRA. The law governing farmworkers is the envy of union organizers in other industries.