Blockbuster Democracy

In Colorado, state legislators are trying to head off a possible Humane Society ballot initiative that would require veal calves and pregnant pigs to be kept in housing that allows them to stand up and turn around.

Why the desperation to stop the Humane Society? Because when the society goes to the ballot, it usually wins.

No organization has a better record at the ballot than the Humane Society of the United States, the true champion of direct democracy. Between 1990 and 2006, HSUS won more than two-thirds of its ballot measure campaigns. (26 out of 38). In most of those efforts, the Humane Society has been on the "yes" side, and "yes" campaigns are far harder to win than "no" campaigns. (About two-thirds of ballot initiatives lose). At the ballot, the Humane Society successfully has sought to ban dove hunting, horse slaughter, cockfighting, and confinement of animals.

Oh, the outrage! Opponents of ballot initiatives love to complain about underhanded tactis in the collection of the signatures. Credulous newspaper reporters (I once was one) often fall for it. The outrages seem so immense: The petitions have duplicate signatures! There are signatures from people who aren't registered to vote! In the youtube era, the newest thing is to post video of signature gatherers, in some dismal supermarket parking lot, misrepresenting -- or, gasp, lying about -- the initiative's intent as they attempt to get signatures. Unbelievable!

Better to take a deep breath and challenge the lousy initiative on the merits. Every petition ever collected has signatures with problems. That's why proponents typically secure about 50 percent more signatures than is legally necessary. If 70 percent of the signatures collected on an initiative or referendum petition turn out to be valid, that's an excellent, honest petition.

It happened this week in Broward County, Florida, offering the world more damning evidence that Floridians aren't to be trusted in matters of democracy. The referendum was to decide whether a 200-person neighborhood would become part of the community of Tamarac. But not one registered voter showed up. One lesson: small communities are better off holding town meetings than formal referenda.

DOING FOR CALIFORNIA HEALTH WHAT THEY DID FOR CALIFORNIA CARS: Advocate Harvey Rosenfeld, author of 1988's Prop. 103 initiative on car insurance, and his organization, the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumers Rights, is putting together an initiative on health care that aimed for the 2010, Capitol Weekly reports. It's a complicated measure and not yet fully cooked. But the insurance commissioner -- a post that has been heavily politicized (and a source of scandal in California in recent decades) -- would get new powers to oversee HMOs and regulate insurance and co-pays. It also would be easier to sue, which shouldn't surprise anyone. Rosenfeld is close to the trial lawyers. 

TOO BIG A CONSTITUTION: One characteristic of states that have the initiative and use it often -- California, Oregon, Colorado -- is that they have very long constitutions. The people have the right to add to and change the constitution and so they do. (It goes with the territory; Switzerland, birthplace of direct democracy, has one of the longest constitutions in the world.) In Colorado, a special legislative committee is studying the state constitution to see if it can be cleaned up a bit. Face the State, a Colorado news and opinon web site, takes a look at the clean-up effort, and is skeptical.

DEATH PENALTY: The president of the African National Congress, South Africa's leading political party, talks up the possibility of holding a national referendum to reinstate the death penalty. Interest in the idea is driven by stubbornly high crime. 

IRISH CHILDREN: A group in Ireland is putting together a referendum to improve the rights of children there.

QUESTION TIME: Last year, San Francisco voted down a ballot initiative that would have required the mayor to submit to "question time" from the board of supervisors, in the same manner that British prime ministers must take questions in the House of Commons. But the board of supes hasn't given up, inviting Mayor Gavin Newsom to show up and take questions. He is declining these invitations. Newsom, who remains popular despite a public confession of adultery with a top aide's wife, has been deflecting requests for information of all kinds as he explores a race for governor in 2010. (Arnold is termed out, so the seat is open).

The backer of anti-affirmative action ballot initiatives tells the Rocky Mountain News he gave a "token" amount because he likes Obama's "post-racial" candidacy. It must be truly be token. The contribution does not show up in a search of the Federal Election Commission database. Given Connerly's reputation among Democrats, this is one endorsement the Illiniois senator didn't need.

In related news, Connerly's initiative in Colorado appears to have enough signatures to make the ballot. This is one of five states where he's sponsoring measures banning affirmative action in government programs.

Your blogger married a Wisconsin girl, who requires an annual summer trip to the Dairy State (Chippewa Falls, hometown of Annie Hall and the DiCaprio character in Titanic). As a result, he has had many occasions to marvel at the wonders produced by the state's Progressive tradition.

One not so Progressive fact of life in Wisconsin is the so-called "Frankenstein veto." Governors are permitted to delete individual words and combine phrases in legislation, thereby creating law that the legislature never intended.

A measure on the April 1 ballot gives voters the chance to do away with Frankenstein. Here's a look at how the current governor used the measure to increase transportation spending all by himself.