Election Excess, 1990-Style: The Issues and the Dangers : What to think about the 28 questions on the Nov. 6 ballot

California is asking its voters for a great deal on Nov. 6. They face a ballot of numbing complexity and length, one in which the task of distinguishing the sincere reform from the cynical manipulation has been made more difficult than ever before. It is longer than most state constitutions and contains ballot measures more complex and politicized than the average piece of legislation we pay legislators to consider in Sacramento.

The ballot contains a nearly endless list of candidates for various offices--everything from governor and congressional representative to commissioners on local water-district boards. That’s the easy part. On top of that, voters are being asked to make intelligent choices on one of the most extensive and complicated list of ballot propositions in the history of electoral politics--more and more various items, in fact, than the Framers were asked to consider at the Constitutional Convention. In the few minutes of booth time permitted the voter, decisions are demanded on matters that even the exceptionally competent legislative body might take months, even years, to work through. Lawyers would be stumped.

Ballot questions include seven sometimes extraordinarily detailed environmental propositions; four large ballot measures on crime, prisons and law enforcement; two important initiatives to limit the length of elected officials’ terms, and two measures that would raise funds for various programs by hiking the tax on alcohol. Many issues on this ballot should be dealt with at the legislative level; some are plainly arcane. One, for instance, concerns hospitals’ investment options; another proposes to embed in the state Constitution a prohibition against fishermen’s use of gill or trammel nets. It’s a worthy question, but does it really demand a constitutional solution?

The voter is also being asked to make large money decisions. Included are measures to authorize the state to sell an additional $5.379 billion in bonds for various good causes--education, parks, courthouse, prisons. But this past June voters also approved more than $5 billion in new general obligation bonds. How much debt should the state burden itself with? That kind of question is not on the ballot; in effect, the voter is being asked to pick and choose and let the chips--assuming there are any left--fall where they may.

This is a deeply questionable way to govern a state, even if this state were as relatively small and homogenous as, say, North Dakota. California voters adopted the initiative because a single railway monopoly had come to exert an unbreakable stranglehold on the state Legislature. In those days, nothing--neither freight nor law--moved without the Southern Pacific’s approval. Initiatives were designed to be special measures to achieve very important, but clearly defined purposes.

Included among the 28 of them on the November ballot, however, are hugely complex ones certain to raise questions that no doubt will preoccupy our already-overburdened courts for years. Many arrived on the ballot not via the fabled “voice of the people route” but through the efforts of special-interest groups or politicians, many of whom employ the services of highly compensated initiative-qualifying consulting firms.

Many voters will feel a terrible frustration--the agony of wanting to be a good citizen, but confronted with problems Solomon himself couldn’t have sorted out even with the advice of counsel. We share the voters’ frustration but feel compelled to fight the temptation to turn our back on the initiative process--to send a signal--by voting ‘no’ on every issue on the ballot. A tempting thought--but, tempting as it might be, it would not be the right thing to do. Honest citizens will no doubt shake their heads once they review the ballot, but then take a deep breath and proceed to do the best they can. And this is what we will try to do, as we share our ballot recommendations these next few weeks. Like you, we will be going down the long list of complex measures. One by one. Measure by measure.

There are real issues on the ballot that require hard choices. In the weeks ahead we’ll be making our recommendations in an effort to help you with the choices you will have to make. We don’t like this process any more than you do. We hope there’ll be true initiative reform in this state before long. None of us should have to go through this again.BALLOT OVERLOAD Number of ballot propositions