Initiatives: Handle With Care

More than any modern elected official in California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger owes his political career to direct democracy, the system of initiatives and recalls spawned a century ago to rein in influential interests.

But last week, in canceling an initiative he had hoped would allow him to overhaul the public pension system, Schwarzenegger learned a key lesson about government by ballot measure: It can be a political Pandora’s box.

Fewer than a fourth of the initiatives proposed ever make it to the ballot in California, and nearly two-thirds of those that go to a state vote fail. There are many reasons why.

Initiative promoters make mistakes when they write them. Backers miscalculate their support; foes outflank and outspend them. Initiative promoters can’t control their ideas once they become public. And for the most part, voters are skeptics.

“Those proposing change have the burden of proof,” said Elizabeth Garrett, a USC law professor and director of the USC-Caltech Center for the Study of Law and Politics. “That is not easy, particularly in the face of well-funded opposition.”

Schwarzenegger had proposed cutting the cost of public employees’ pensions by instituting 401(k)-style accounts. He vowed to bypass legislators if they balked at the plan and take his case directly to the people.

But in a rush to qualify the pension concept for a special election he is contemplating for November, the governor’s political advisors apparently did not fully appreciate the depth of the opposition that would develop.

The attorney general’s office, which writes the legal title and summary of all potential initiatives before signatures can be gathered to qualify them for the ballot, gave the measure’s foes the ammunition they needed. The office concluded that it would end the death and disability payments that the current system provides.

The oversight placed the governor in the uncomfortable position of facing angry spouses and children of police officers and firefighters maimed and killed in the line of duty, who were charging that families of future employees could be deprived of a financial lifeline.

“You need to properly vet [initiatives] before you start gathering signatures,” said Republican campaign and initiative consultant Dave Gilliard. “That didn’t happen with this one.”

Schwarzenegger did not draft the measure, nor was he the official proponent. He left such details to his team of consultants and advisors. Many are practiced at running California campaigns. But in this instance, they stumbled at the start in a process that is unforgiving.

“You can’t make any mistakes,” said John Hein, former political director for the California Teachers Assn. who helped set up the campaign against initiatives that Schwarzenegger has embraced. “There is no give-and-take. It is very black and white.”

The “title and summary” phase of the initiative process has tripped up many initiatives, but there are other pitfalls.

Forces beyond a proponent’s control, such as a downturn in the economy, may lead to failure of measures that propose spending money. Well-funded opponents can dominate the airwaves and raise doubts about the wisdom of a given initiative. Foes may launch competing initiatives that confuse voters -- and “all fail because of the cacophony of voices,” Garrett said.

The side that spends the most money often wins, but not always. In 1994, backers of an initiative to roll back the state’s nonsmoking laws outspent foes 18 to 1. But after leading in early polls, support for the measure plummeted once news reports and an advertising campaign focused attention on the proponents: the tobacco industry.

The issue of who backs a measure also came into play in November, when opponents of an initiative to expand urban gambling emphasized that Hustler magazine owner Larry Flynt owns a card room that would have received slot machines.

Schwarzenegger’s team of advisors and Citizens to Save California, the campaign committee set up to promote the governor’s initiatives, include several veteran initiative warriors. They know how the initiative process works -- particularly in the critical early stages.

“You have to consider the politics of the language that comes out of the attorney general’s office and how it is going to play,” said Joel Fox, a co-chairman of Citizens to Save California. “It is an old lesson.... Maybe we should have listened to that lesson a little more closely.”

Schwarzenegger is not accustomed to losing. In his first foray into politics in 2002, he sponsored Proposition 49, to provide after-school programs. It won, 56.7% to 43.3%. In 2003, when he ousted former Gov. Gray Davis in the recall election, Schwarzenegger bested his nearest rival by 1.5 million votes.

Last year, he sponsored two propositions to overhaul the state budget system. They won by spreads of 63.4% to 36.6% and 71.2% to 28.8%.

But if he proceeds with the remaining measures he is still considering this year, he will face far more opposition than in the past. Schwarzenegger campaign aide Marty Wilson said the governor is now focused on a proposal to restrain state spending and a separate one to change the way voting districts are determined.

The redistricting proposal is the subject of negotiations between the administration and legislative leaders. They are seeking a compromise on Schwarzenegger’s desire to have congressional and legislative districts drawn by a panel of judges rather than by the Legislature.

The influential California Teachers Assn., with more than 300,000 members, formed an alliance with the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. to fight the governor’s agenda. The two unions, which had been rivals, are able to amass millions in funds to campaign.

“He got the educators and correctional officers singing ‘Kumbaya.’ That’s hard to do,” said Craig Brown, lobbyist for the prison officers’ union.

Wilson said the alliance doesn’t “frighten” him. The governor “is very intent on going forward,” he said.

But Schwarzenegger will not be able to control what else appears on the ballot, if he calls a special election. Prison guards and teachers plan an initiative to raise property taxes on businesses. Other groups are pushing measures to cut the cost of prescription drugs and make it easier for consumers to return cars they believe are lemons.

At this point, the initiative closest to qualifying for the ballot would require that healthcare workers notify parents before performing abortions on minors. That controversial measure is not part of Schwarzenegger’s agenda. Its backers intend to submit their petitions this week, said Tom Bader, whose firm, Bader and Associates Inc. of Newport Beach, mounted the signature drive.

Petition circulators have little time to gather the requisite hundreds of thousands of valid voter signatures that must be submitted to election officials by the end of this month to qualify for a November election. Facing the same tight deadlines, Schwarzenegger’s allies didn’t have time to rewrite and refine his measures, something proponents often do when they are troubled by the attorney general’s title and summary.

Jon Coupal, the pension measure’s official proponent, called Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer’s analysis of it “wholly manufactured.”

Citizens to Save California’s attorneys could have sued to change the summary, said Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., a group founded by one of the authors of Proposition 13, the landmark anti-property tax initiative of 1978. But opponents were quick to capitalize on the analysis by organizing protests and enlisting widows to denounce the measure.

“When they have 10,000 screaming people out there, it is difficult to get the truth out,” Coupal said.

Nathan Barankin, Lockyer’s spokesman, said in an e-mail that Coupal and others are making “assertions without any factual or legal support.”

If the governor goes forward with a special election, he probably will also have to contend with the title and summary that Lockyer gave to the initiative to limit state spending.

The summary homes in on the initiative’s effect on education funding, saying it threatens spending on public schools.

It “changes state minimum school funding requirements... ,” the summary says, “permitting suspension of minimum funding, but terminating repayment requirement, and eliminating authority to reduce funding when state revenues decrease.”