Making Hay in Hiram Johnson’s Pasture : Politics: Elected officials are increasingly using the initiative process to push their ideas and score political points.

The initiative, once the tool of every citizen, is becoming the instrument of the elected Establishment. That’s clearly not what Hiram Johnson, the father of the initiative, intended.

For this year’s election, no fewer than 15 initiatives have been introduced by one or more elected officials, from the governor to wannabe governors. That constitutes roughly 30% of the initiatives submitted to the attorney general this year, the first step to the ballot.

The measures pushed by elected officials cover as wide a range of issues as any legislative docket. One would target legal gambling to finance senior care; another would require prisoners to work for their keep. There are competing criminal-reform proposals.

Then there are the measures to reform government. The cynic, of course, rightly questions the sincerity of elected officials who would reform government.

Ironically, the sudden spate of initiatives sponsored by elected officials may be the result of Proposition 73, a successful 1988 measure authored by Assemblyman Ross Johnson (R-La Habra). It limits the amount of money that a candidate seeking office can raise from individuals, corporations and PACs. There are no such caps on contributions to initiative campaigns. Thus, by hooking up with an initiative, elected officials can, in effect, end-runthe limits on fund-raising by turning issue promotion into self-promotion.

Sponsoring an initiative has another advantage for elected officials: It attracts the media’s attention.

Should elected officials be barred from sponsoring initiatives? If that were the law, the number of initiatives appearing on the ballot would shrink, along with complaints about excessive time spent in the voting booth. But legislators are citizens, too.

In the end, legislators’ increasing use of the initiative may not be the only irony. Hiram Johnson was elected governor of California on the slogan “Kick the Southern Pacific Railroad out of the Legislature.” At the time, the railroad controlled many legislators through political payments. A rail-bond initiative strongly supported by Southern Pacific will appear on the June ballot. If it passes, some of the money would be used to pay for the railroad’s projects.