Keep the Initiatives but Reinvolve Legislators

This past election, Los Angeles area voters were confronted with a ballot that included six local measures and no fewer than 29 statewide initiatives. The California ballot pamphlet describing the state measures was 159 pages long.

Even so, voters here may have been lucky. In San Francisco, 54 measures were on the ballot. All across California, election officials were so concerned about the length and complexity of the ballot that some counties were enforcing voting-booth time limits and offering the equivalent of supermarket-style express lanes in an effort to make sure that all eligible voters were into the balloting process by the 8 p.m. poll closing time.

California’s initiative process, designed by Progressive Gov. Hiram Johnson in the early 1900s to circumvent a Legislature that was a captive of the powerful railroad lobby, now is in danger of becoming a runaway engine itself.

What is happening in California is a trend toward longer, more complex ballots that require voters to sort through and decide controversial and sometimes competing issues.

This trend has developed simply because the governor and the Legislature have failed to address major problems facing our state. While it can be argued that the voters made some discerning decisions Nov. 8, much time, money and energy were spent in the process.

The initiative process must be maintained but reformed to make it work better. Many defects could be corrected. Initiative proposals often are one-sided. They are drawn up by a particular interest group and tend to be narrow in their focus. There is no chance for public scrutiny during their drafting, which means there is no attempt to compromise to achieve a balanced proposal. The language cannot be changed after the initiative is submitted; any legal defects discovered later are often subject to lengthy and costly court challenges. Because of the requirement that the actual language be included in the ballot booklet, the public often has difficulty understanding the legal fine-print and so must judge the merits of each initiative based on what others say. Usually, that explanation is provided by some high-priced advertising firm that engages in oversimplification at best or, in some cases, outright misrepresentation. Finally, the signature-gathering efforts for an initiative are subject to fraud and misrepresentation. People who sign a petition do not usually read the fine print.

These defects could be cured by requiring the governor and the Legislature to treat initiative efforts in a serious way. We need to bolster the ability of the public to compel the executive and legislative branches to confront the tough issues that are too often being resolved through the initiative process because Sacramento cannot or will not act. At the same time we must involve the Legislature and governor in a constructive manner in dealing with initiatives to avoid the drafting pitfalls of vague provisions or legally weak language.

We can do this by adopting an indirect initiative process. How would this work? One way would be to require that when the initiative’s sponsors have gathered half the signatures necessary to qualify the measure for the ballot, the secretary of state would send the initiative to the governor and the Legislature. The governor would appoint a three-member commission that would have 60 days to make a report on the problem addressed by the initiative and make recommendations for its solution. The report would include the governor’s comments, thus involving him directly in the process. The Legislature would then have 90 days to deal with the proposal.

This time period would allow for the public to comment, opposition arguments to be mounted and compromise language to be drafted. If the governor and the Legislature failed to act, or if they modified the proposal in a manner that the proponents found objectionable, the initiative process could still be followed by securing the remaining required signatures.

This solution offers a number of advantages. It would allow the process that we now have in place to still be used when the governor and the Legislature fail to adequately address the problem. However, it would also give the legislative and executive branches a chance to deal with some of these issues as part of the normal legislative process where research, public scrutiny and compromise could be used to resolve pressing problems. All sides of a proposition would be aired.

The recent plethora of initiatives on the ballot is due to the failure of these two branches to confront challenging issues. The governor plays a unique role in attempting to solve many of the major issues facing the state. He is elected by all the people and therefore certainly should have a role in solving problems, such as the insurance crisis, that have triggered initiatives.

In our democracy, we elect our representatives to serve the people. When they do their jobs, our government works.