Dealing with the California initiative system

Californians tend to feel the same way about their initiative system as they do about Congress or the Legislature: They blame the collective body for a host of ills, but they like their own representatives just fine. Likewise, voters frequently express impatience with the onslaught of election-day measures, but they will vigorously protect their right to sign a petition or vote for a particular measure they believe is crucial.

So how can California simultaneously wrest back some control over the initiative process and keep intact what has become virtually a birthright: the people’s power to adopt laws and constitutional amendments at the voting booth?

There can be no solutions without first identifying the flaws in the existing system, and distinguishing between real problems and mere irritants. So, for example, it can become a royal nuisance to Californians trying to enter a grocery store or mall to be greeted by an aggressive signature-gatherer who is paid for every eligible voter who signs up to get a particular measure — or two, or three — on the ballot. Voters don’t know whether the person with the clipboard is a grass-roots activist with heart and soul invested in the campaign, or just a hired hand doing some part-time political salesmanship, with little knowledge of what the measure says and little incentive in any case to explain it in detail.

It was to deal with those annoyances that lawmakers sent Gov. Jerry Brown a bill earlier this year to bar campaigns from paying a per-signature bounty and another one requiring signature-gatherers to wear identifying badges if they were paid for their work.

Brown wisely vetoed both proposals. Marketed as attempts to stop big campaign interests from misusing voters, the bills really would have accomplished little. A shopper who chooses to stop and listen to the campaigner’s pitch is no more put upon than the one who listens to a Girl Scout’s offer to sell a box of Thin Mints, and the content of the ballot measure is not much harder to glean than the ingredients on the box of cookies. True, the Girl Scout wears identifying insignia, but in a democracy, each of us, without a special badge, ought to be able to ask for support for a political measure, just as each of us ought to be able to ignore such a pitch.

Changes of a more substantive nature have been offered by Assemblyman Mike Gatto, a Democrat representing Burbank, Glendale and slivers of Los Angeles. Gatto would have the Legislature take a role in shaping voter initiatives to help identify problems before it’s too late and generally make measures fit more seamlessly into California law. Such proposals need not undermine the essence of direct democracy — which is meant to circumvent the Legislature and the special interests that too often shape its decisions — as long as ballot measure proponents are free to reject any tinkering. We’ll explore that issue more fully in this space in coming days.