Referendum

Winners:

Political reform. In California, the big longshot -- redistricting reform, which has a near perfect record of losing at the ballot -- came in. Prop 11, which strips the legislature of the right to draw state legislative districts (Congressional districts were exempted) -- passed. It's a stunning win (and one your blogger predicted would not happen). This redistricting measure is a modest reform, but the victory suggests that political reform on the ballot may be possible -- at least if there isn't much of a campaign against it. Look for future measures on open primary and perhaps other reforms. And in Colorado, Prop 54 -- which had little money and faced a huge, expensive, labor campaign againts it -- also appears to have scored a triumph. The measure is a tight ban on "pay to play." If a company or union has a contract with the government, it can't give money. Labor leaders here in Denver last night say they will challenge it in court.

The initiative process. Voters turned down the greatest in the country to the initiative process, Arizona's "majority rules" measure, which would have established a near impossible standard for passing an initiative: a majority of all the state's registered voters (not just the voters who show up on election day). Measure O, a legislative referendum to make it more difficult to qualify an initiative to change the state constitution, also went down.

Sunday in the Sacramento Bee, I wrote about my idea for reforming California's direct democracy. The piece is here. It's part of a weekly feature called "The Conversation." Please contribute your own thoughts on the idea. At root, the idea is to make it easier to qualify referenda -- ballot measures to block an act of the legislature -- for the ballot, and make it harder to qualify and pass initiatives. The idea is to make initiatives, which are common, rare, and to make referenda, which are rare, more common.

Be sure to read not just my piece but the three pieces the Bee solicited to respond to it. The one from Rick Hasen, a prominent election lawyer, details the most common objection from reformers. They don't like the initiative process, but they see it as the only way to enact their reforms. My view is that very little political reform takes place by initiative. In fact, reform has usually been set back by initiative (I don't consider term limits progress--it certainly didn't improve the quality of governance in my state). Please let me know what you think.

The royal line of succession in Denmark favors boys over girls. But Danes will get to vote on changing those rules in a referendum next year. If the measure is approved, royal succession would be based on birth order, not sex.

We've reached the final hours of this global conference of journalists, academics and others interested in gobal direct democracy. Today has focused on the European Union, a subject so mind-numbing that this American can't wait to get home and watch some playoff baseball.

One great statistic came out of today's talks, courtesy of Gabriela Felder, a University of Zurich political scientist: an 80-year-old Swiss man, living his life in Zurich, will have voted on 1,800 referenda and initiatives in his lifetime.

That's the motto of the In-House Drafting Committee, one of the most interesting government offices I've come across. The committee handles the official translation of all legislation -- including initiatives and referenda -- in Switzerland. It's a crucial role in a country with three major national languages -- German, French and Italian. They do not have a light hand--they do serious editing for clarity and for constitutionality. The office has an interesting collection of people: historians, political scientists, linguists and two-- count 'em, two -- theologians. (They're considered particularly good on questions of ethics, morality and the original meaning of texts).

It's an article of faith that Switzerland's diversity, particularly in language, is both a challenge and an advantage for the country's democracy. "Ideas tend to be expressed more clearly when they have to be translated," one staffer explained to me. I asked if there is often resistance to the changes they suggest in ballot initiatives filed by citizens. The answer: no. The committee essentially provides legislative drafting to initiative sponsors. The initiative writers can reject the suggestions of the drafting committee, but they rarely do. The committee eliminates ambiguity, make initiatives shorter, and make the terms so clear that their meaning will be clear in three languages. That's what it means to think like a philosopher and write like a farmer.

I spent Tuesday morning at the Kafigturm, the former women's prison in Bern that has been converted into the leading spot for holding political forums, press conferences and meetings. (It's a short walk from the headquarters of the government and the Parliament). My reporter friends and I visited with Hans-Urs Wili, a Swiss institution who has been spent the last third of a century (today was the day when he reached exactly one-third, and this man knows how to count) as the Swiss referee in matters of direct democracy. His title is head of the department of political rights at the federal chancellery. As such, he advises lawmakers and citizens alike in matters of referenda and initiatives. His is the office to which you turn in signatures. Just as Liz Hill, the legislature's non-partisan analyst in California, was long known as the budget nun, you could call Wili the Swiss initiative monk. (He declined the title when I offered it, but still, it fits).

Wili was looking forward to a long weekend of checking signatures on referendum petitions, which are due in his office by 6 p.m. Thursday. Finding valid signatures is a problem in Switzerland as it is in other places with direct democracy, but the problem is a bit different for Wili. Municipalities review petitions first to check that those who signed are citizens and eligible voters. There isn't much problem there. Wili's headache is weeding out repeat signatures. It's not uncommon for Swiss voters to sign the same referendum or initiative multiple times. Why? It's not necessarily intentional.

BERN, Switzerland -- As a group of journalists and I (all of us cover direct democracy) make our way around this country by train and by bus on our way to a conference Wednesday, we keep meeting Swiss who boast -- politely -- about their direct democracy. They describe it as frustrating, problematic, but also as essential part of their political culture. There's one topic, however that they seem sheepish about: voter turnout.

It's low, very low. In Sunday's referendum and initiative elections in the canton of Zurich, the nation's largest, voter turnout came in at just 35 percent. And Denise Meyer, an election official there, described that as typical. In Uri, where direct democracy is a passion, a top canton minister described a turnout of 45 percent as pretty good.

It's Sunday morning in Bulach, Switzerland, in the canton of Zurich (and 15 minutes outside the main city). I arrived groggily a few hours ago, in the middle of initiative and referendum elections. Swiss voters graciously allowed me and a handful of other journalists (from Sweden, Bulgaria, Latvia, and Taiwan) to watch them fill out and turn in their ballots at a polling place in the city hall here. Bells rang, calling folks to the polls and to church.

First impressions. The Swiss offer people more ways to vote. These folks going to the polls are rare. Most voting is done by mail. And the Swiss also are permitted to vote by text message. This greater choice does not result in high voter turnout, however. Swiss and Americans have some of the lowest turnout figures in the civilized world. There are a lot of elections -- four a year for most Swiss.

The Capitol Weekly reports that the powerful California Teachers Association is holding an emergency meeting of its board today to discuss how to respond to the just-passed budget. CTA is unhappy about the budget -- who isn't? -- and is taking action as a result. On the table, according to the Weekly: 1. no spending on Democratic legislative campaigns this fall. 2. a ballot measure to reverse corporate tax cuts that are in the budget, and 3. endorsing Prop 11, the redistricting reform initiative on this November's ballot. If CTA were to back Prop 11 with its endorsement and money, it might give the cause of redistricting reform -- never a popular cause -- enough push to get it over the top.

In a quick morning canvas of signature gatherers and local coordinators in California, none of the half-dozen people I checked with around the state has been hired to do the Arnold recall as yet. This is the slow season for the signature gathering game. Many of California's gatherers are working on local initiative or referendum petitions -- there's a significant one in Stockton, and several in Southern California -- or are out of state. The good news for supporters of recalling Arnold is that it wouldn't be hard to hire signature gatherers fast, and with little else on the street, the price wouldn't be particularly high.