It’s Time to Take the Initiative on Limiting These Costly Special Elections

If anything needs to be reformed in California, it’s the initiative system. It’s out of control, running amok.

Consider that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his zeal to “reform,” is preparing to call a special election in November that would cost taxpayers at least $50 million, perhaps $70 million. State government already is deficit-ridden. How ironic -- or is it cynical? -- that the governor is promoting an initiative called the “Live Within Our Means Act.”

“Think big,” he told me two months ago when I questioned him about the urgency. “Sometimes you have to put up a certain amount of money to make more money back.”

The state wouldn’t have to put up any extra money if it waited until next year and placed all the current, proliferating initiatives on a regular election ballot.

But by next year, Sacramento will be in an even deeper budget hole. And Schwarzenegger thinks he needs a new spending limit to force him and the Legislature to slash programs more aggressively than either have the stomach for without a voter mandate. It’s the only way to balance the budget without a tax increase.

Also, calling a special election this year gives Schwarzenegger a big fundraising advantage.

This year, there’ll be no limit on an individual donation to the committee that is financing the governor’s initiative campaigns. For example, Spanish-language TV entrepreneur A. Jerrold Perenchio already has kicked in $1.5 million.

But next year, if Schwarzenegger is running for a second term, he won’t be allowed to appear in an initiative TV commercial within 45 days of the election unless the committee abides by the gubernatorial donation limit of $22,300.

So this year, he’ll be better armed for the TV ad wars. And, if voters are willing, he’ll be granted a license to whack all programs -- from education to healthcare to transportation -- and be spared from finally having to raise taxes.

But set aside the issue of whether the governor and the Legislature, with enough political courage, could balance the budget on their own without a $70-million special election -- and that if a constitutional fix is needed, such as providing more flexibility in school funding, it could be offered to voters on a regular, already paid-for ballot.

The current problem is that there’s political anarchy in the streets, a shootout between special interests like we’ve never seen, at least in modern times.

At last count, 53 initiatives had qualified for signature gathering; perhaps a dozen are actually in circulation. Plus, 18 more are awaiting ballot title by the attorney general.

Their subject matters run the gamut: used car sales, prescription drugs, minimum wage, polluter fees, parental consent for abortion, performance pay for teachers, privatizing public pensions, urban casinos....

The governor’s No. 2 priority, behind a spending limit: an initiative to snatch the redrawing of legislative and congressional districts from legislators and turn it over to retired judges. But this doesn’t require a special election. Even if the redrawing were done before the next census, as Schwarzenegger insists, it couldn’t possibly go into effect until the 2008 election.

“People are not rising up and demanding that we solve redistricting,” notes Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies. “Even if I do think it’s a great idea.”

Instead, rising up are the special interests -- some aligned with Schwarzenegger, others with public employees -- and political partisans, acting more petty than usual for a nonelection year.

Unfortunately for problem solving, there hasn’t been a nonelection year in Sacramento since 2001. This should be a relatively calm period in the political cycle when serious negotiations over substantive issues are being held in the Capitol. It’s normally a time when a governor is burnishing his image in preparation for a reelection race and legislators are padding their records of accomplishments.

Instead, the governor is on the road insulting Democratic legislators and they’re taking cheap shots at him. Ultimately, both sides may be forced to negotiate, but currently the atmosphere is too polluted. Anyway, the governor is occupied raising money. His goal is $50 million.

There’s not much constitutionally that can be done to limit the money spent on initiatives. You can’t even bar signatures collected by paid hustlers.

“Get me enough money,” declares Assembly Elections Committee Chairman Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove), “and I’ll get an initiative on the ballot that says the Earth is flat.”

But one reform I’d suggest would be to prohibit calling a special election for the “flat Earth” or any initiative. Require all initiatives to be placed on regular ballots to save the taxpayers money. If a special election were needed in an emergency -- like to approve earthquake repair bonds -- the governor and the Legislature could arrange it.

Another reform would be to require each signature petition to declare which special interests are bankrolling the initiative. Senate Elections Committee Chairwoman Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey) is sponsoring such a bill.

A badly needed reform would be to resurrect what Gov. Hiram Johnson pioneered a century ago: the indirect initiative. It perished in a foolish mid-1960s constitutional revision.

Under that system, the Legislature would get a crack at altering an initiative before it went on the ballot. Sponsors could accept or reject the lawmakers’ work. But legislators would be forced to act, and they’d provide a filter for flaws.

Meanwhile, spending $70 million the state doesn’t have for a special election the people don’t need is just another example of the Sacramento status quo that Schwarzenegger says he wants to reform.

Reach the writer at george.skelton@latimes.com.