Ballot Issues: Democracy or a Cop-Out? : Voting: Proliferation of referendums and initiatives has pluses and minuses. They help citizens get involved but they also let lawmakers off hook.

You’re a legislator, facing tough decisions. Bound to be controversial, sure to set barn fires no matter how you decide.

Then someone has a bright idea: let the people decide. Put the issue on the ballot and put the question to the people. What could be more democratic?

Is that buck-passing?

Or, is it direct, participatory democracy?

Yes it is and yes it is, said Patrick B. McGuigan, an Oklahoman who has been keeping track of ballot propositions at the conservative Free Congress Foundation for years.

Yes, said McGuigan, when legislatures put issues on the ballot “it becomes a way for legislators to avoid doing what we elect them to do.”

And, yes, said McGuigan, “it is an expression of confidence in ourselves.” He said it makes citizens more involved in everyday politics, more aware of the issues.

“Every meaningful criticism that can be made against the initiative process has an exact corollary in every other aspect of our democratic system,” he said.

In any event, ballot-box lawmaking is a growing phenomenon. Twenty-six states and the District of Columbia allow referendums (issues referred to the people by the legislatures) or initiatives (issues on the ballot at the initiative of voters), but only about a dozen states use these processes with much regularity.

In 1988, voters decided on 229 statewide issues. They ranged from repealing a gun control law in Maryland (no dice, said the voters) to discouraging tobacco use by increasing cigarette taxes 25 cents in California (that passed despite a $15-million industry campaign against it).

This year, even more issues are likely to be voted upon, including tax limitation issues, tax increases for specific purposes and measures to limit the terms of legislators.

You can argue for it: it is direct democracy.

You can argue against it: Citizens are called to make decisions without having heard the pros and cons. They don’t have to consider priorities (voting money for the homeless might take money from the sick or the schools). They can be influenced by expensive advertising campaigns mounted by special interests.

Thomas Cronin, a Colorado College political scientist and author of “Direct Democracy: The Politics of the Initiative, Referendum and Recall,” is a middle-of-the-roader. Like McGuigan, he sees both sides.

If citizens don’t know what they’re voting on, legislators often don’t either, he said. They pass a lot of bills in a frantic final burst; they spend about a third of each session amending or otherwise repairing measures passed the previous session. And they are influenced by political action committees, lobbyists and special interests, too.

On the other hand, Cronin’s research found that 10% to 15% of the voters who go to the polls (often only 50% of the electorate) do not vote on ballot issues “and another 10% really don’t know what they’re voting on.”

“So the answer is that both of these processes ought to be of concern,” he said. “Why do we have referendums? It’s because our system has become far less democratic in practice than in the textbooks. In the ideal world, we would not have to resort to initiative-referendum campaigns because we would have such responsible, responsive legislatures they wouldn’t be necessary.”

Cronin finds that elected officeholders, scholars and journalists tend to be opposed to direct democracy devices. They think the issues are too complicated, that issues first should be aired at hearings, that compromises--the essence of democracy--can’t be molded by a citizen facing a yes or no choice.

The argument comes down, Cronin said, to philosophy. It is a case of the populists, who think the people always know best, vs. “parentalists,” who think papa knows best.

He notes that voters sometimes use the ballot to strike back at big government: Massachusetts voters vetoed both a mandatory seat belt law and a salary increase for state legislators one year.

McGuigan and Cronin share a concern about what happens when too many issues crowd themselves onto the ballot. In 1988, so many questions were on the California ballot that express lines were created for voters who promised to spend only five minutes marking their ballot.

Cronin said the growth in ballot issues is a result, too, of the way incumbents have become almost undefeatable.

“Regular elections in America are increasingly meaningless,” he said. “Ninety-five percent of incumbents at the state and national level get reelected routinely. In Colorado, only once in the 1980s did a state senator get defeated. That’s not untypical.”

“If we have no turnover, no real competition, then the people with a grievance have two choices--form a PAC if they have lots of money, or get their issue on the ballot if they don’t.”