A Love-Hate Affair With the Initiative Process

Whenever the experts start talking about reforming state government in California, one of their first goals is to do something about the ballot initiative, the method by which the citizens get to write their own laws.

But the reformers know that messing with the process can only be done at some peril, for as much as voters might gripe about initiatives they are not about to let someone eliminate them. The results of the process show why. Over the years, the ballot initiative has brought California some of its most dramatic change. Take revisions to the state Constitution. Proposition 13 in 1978 slashed the property tax and reordered state and local government finance. Other measures gave us the state lottery, coastline protection, guaranteed levels of school finance and term limits. In recent elections, Propositions 187 and 209 stirred racial and political passions.

Californians’ degree of support for the process is reflected in the results of a survey recently published by the Field Poll. Of 1,007 Californians surveyed, 74% supported retention of the process.

Poll officials said Californians have a broad list of complaints about the initiative, including the fact that ballot measures are often too complicated, that they are almost always put on the ballot by special interests, not ordinary citizens, and that many of them are poorly written and subsequently struck down by the courts.

As for possible reforms, a strong majority of those polled said they would favor a limit on the amount of money that can be spent by supporters and opponents of ballot issues. In 1996, voters adopted Proposition 208, which imposes restrictions on candidate spending but does not affect ballot measure campaigns.

Voters also liked the idea of submitting proposed initiatives to the secretary of state before signatures are gathered to make certain the measures conform to law and that the language is clear. This idea, or some variation of it, often is included in proposed initiative reforms.

But the Californians participating in the poll were decidedly cool to another change that is frequently proposed: to have an “indirect initiative” whereby the proposal is first submitted to the state Legislature for consideration. If the lawmakers passed the proposal into law in a form acceptable to the initiative’s sponsors, the initiative campaign would be dropped. If the Legislature failed to act, the initiative process would proceed. Forty-two percent of all voters liked the indirect initiative, 52% were opposed and 6% had no opinion.

And, no surprise, Californians are strongly opposed to allowing the Legislature to amend ballot propositions that have been passed by the voters--by 70% to 27%. The initiative is viewed as a method for citizens to write their own laws when the Legislature fails to act. Clearly, many Californians do not want to give the Legislature an opportunity to weaken or undermine a ballot measure either before or after it is adopted.

Reformers should continue to seek ways to make initiatives more understandable to voters and to avoid the legal flaws that often plague poorly drafted measures. But the poll makes clear that the thumbs up/thumbs down voting process is as Californian as sunglasses, a political fashion statement.