Law by Initiative

The initiative was created in the Progressive Era as a populist device to write state laws when the legislative and executive branches failed to act. California’s initiative was introduced, with other reforms, to break the control of the railroads over state government. With enlightened political leadership, the initiative would not be necessary.

Proposition 13, the property tax amendment of 1978, was an example of a populist uprising. State government failed to respond to a real, critical issue. The people revolted and changed the law. Since then, legislators and governors have become unwavering advocates of property tax limits.

As time passed, political candidates recognized the potential benefit--sometimes the absolute necessity--of either associating themselves with initiative petition measures that would appear on the same ballot, or distancing themselves as far as possible. A gun-control measure on the 1982 ballot may have won the governorship for Republican George Deukmejian over Democrat Tom Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles. Four years later, Bradley took the candidate-initiative nexus a step further. His own campaign helped draft Proposition 65, the anti-toxics initiative, and attempted to use it as a vehicle for electing him governor. Proposition 65 passed, but Bradley was defeated.

And now, as the 1990 campaign for governor gathers momentum, candidates and initiatives are being wrapped into single packages. One obvious advantage is for the candidate to become intimately identified with a popular issue: Republican Sen. Pete Wilson with an anti-crime measure, for instance, and Democratic Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp with a sweeping environmental proposal. Superficially, that seems innocent enough. Too often, however, it is difficult to determine just what a candidate stands for. But this is not the way to restore public confidence in the political process. And there is no crisis in either the criminal justice or environmental areas that would justify such sweeping revision by voter initiative.

Now it is clear that another motive may be involved: to use the initiative as a means of skirting state laws restricting the amount of money individuals and committees can give a candidate’s campaign. There are no limits on contributions to initiative drives. With candidates associating themselves with initiative measures from the outset, money raised and spent in behalf of the initiative measure can be virtually as potent as money spent directly on the candidate’s campaign.

Wilson supporters can give both directly to his campaign and to the anti-crime initiative drive. Van de Kamp backers can do the same. Having the choice of two initiatives, he is planning to sponsor--the catch-all environmental measure and a political ethics and reform proposal.

The Legislature should consider imposing limits on individual and corporate contributions to initiative campaigns, not just because of the candidate/initiative association, but because special-interest spending on initiative campaigns already had soared out of control.

The candidate/initiative link also is cause for concern on a more esoteric political level. A major reason for the proliferation of initiative campaigns in recent elections is the lack of concerted leadership in Sacramento. Citizen groups, and even legislators themselves, have given up on the ability of the governor and legislators to work together on a variety of urgent issues. They have short-circuited the process to write new laws themselves via well-financed initiative campaigns.

The candidates for governor who say they will offer California strong new leadership from the executive office are subverting that very notion by becoming candidates by initiative. Van de Kamp even has hurt his potential for working with fellow Democrats in the Legislature by proposing in his reform measure that legislators’ terms be limited. Lawmakers are furious with him for trying to boost his political career by suggesting that theirs be cut short.

California desperately needs leadership that will restore people’s confidence in the political process. Trying to ride into office on the coattails of an initiative petition campaign is not the way.