Category: initiative, referendum, and recall

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initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Nebraska Initiative: Open or Closed?

In 2008, State Senator DiAnna Schimek’s 20-​year legislative career came to an end, thanks to the term limits initiative enacted by Nebraska voters. Third time proved the charm; the state supreme court had struck down the first two citizen-​initiated term-​limit measures.

Without the initiative process, no term limits. That’s reason enough for Schimek and other pseudo-​solons to despise the initiative — not to mention that every initiative breaks legislators’ law-​making monopoly

In 2008, Sen. Schimek and her fellow unicamereleons realized the voters had won. Unable to overturn term limits a third time, they did the next worst thing: wreck the path by which such popular reforms could be instituted in the future.

Schimek introduced Legislative Bill 39, which re-​wrote the rules for petitioning initiative measures onto the ballot. Illuminatingly, more than 90 percent of state senators termed-​out that year supported Schimek’s parting shot to punish the initiative petition process. When the governor vetoed this frontal assault on a fundamental democratic check, legislators overrode his veto. 

Since passage of LB 39 in 2008, not a single citizen initiative has qualified for the ballot.

Then, on Tuesday, after a multi-​year legal challenge brought by Citizens in Charge and Nebraska citizens, a federal judge struck down the law’s ban on out-​of state petition circulators as unconstitutional.

One of the chains left around the neck of the Nebraska citizenry by Schimek and that last batch of career politicians has now been removed.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

We Can All Get Along

Our country is divided politically — or so we hear — right from left, liberal from conservative, progressive from libertarian. Nothing new.

Yet, don’t we all agree on the main points? Certain truths remain self-evident:

  • Government must have the consent of the governed.
  • ‘We, the People’ are the boss.
  • Our votes should count.
  • Our constitutional rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness count even more.

At Townhall last Sunday, I wrote about a government (ours) that lacks the approval of the people. Even cynical moi is amazed that, in response to their sizzling disapproval ratings, our politicians seem intent on attacking our most fundamental democratic rights to actively disapprove. Freedom of Speech. Assembly. Petition.

On the first day of this month, California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a bill he called a “dramatic” assault on the initiative rights of Californians. On the last day, another bill rests on the governor’s desk. It would force petition circulators to wear a sign on their chests, reading, “Paid Signature Gatherer,” if they receive any compensation at all for their work.

This “reform” is the zenith of wisdom among the Golden State’s great solons.

Our country’s problems with representative government cannot be solved by legislating away the rights of citizens to speak out and participate politically. And by “representative government” we mean not only that the job of a legislator is to represent us, but also that we reserve the right to represent ourselves.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture initiative, referendum, and recall media and media people

What the Media Misses

The big news story last week became the media’s non-​coverage of the Ron Paul campaign. After Jon Stewart of The Daily Show successfully brought out the full nature of the media prejudice, it became the story.

That’s how bias backfires. Trying to keep Ron Paul out of the headlines led to putting Ron Paul in the headlines.

How easily a conspiracy of silence turns into a deafening noise.

Media bigots think they are doing a public service when they pick winners and throw out losers before almost anyone has even heard from the challengers. They consider it their job.

Undoubtedly they look at Ron Paul’s platform and say to themselves “This guy doesn’t fit into the normal left-​right spectrum, or even neatly into his own party. That makes him unelectable. So we won’t talk about him.” This points to media’s true power: establishing what’s worth talking about.

Trouble is, by rushing to judgment against Paul, they miss the day’s major story: Paul’s appeal transcends usual party lines. It’s not just a tiny cadre of libertarians on his side, it’s conservatives and liberals and exes of both persuasions; it’s centrists who’ve never heard anyone talk about the Federal Reserve before; it’s peaceniks who are serious about ending America’s wars.

It might even be that strong core of American society that still respects honesty and consistency.

The media has missed this elsewhere, too: In repeated recalls and initiatives around the country.

Cover the big story, folks. Not just your own spin.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Wisconsin’s Kumbaya Moment

With all our divisive politics, who would’ve thought it would take a spate of recalls in Wisconsin to bring folks together in democratic unity.

Whether we root for the blue team, the red one or seek a third color — green or something — we can all celebrate that an election was held Tuesday. 

It was a special recall election of state legislators — made all the more special because it was called by citizens. 

Miffed at Democrats for leaving the state to block a quorum in the senate or incensed at Republicans for passing legislation removing collective bargaining for most unionized state workers, Wisconsin voters didn’t just have to sit there and take it. Empowered by their state’s recall law, they gathered hundreds of thousands of voter signatures. 

Six incumbent Republicans were on Tuesday’s ballot. Four held their seats and two were defeated by Democrats, who fell just one seat short of grabbing the majority. Two incumbent Democrats still face recalls next Tuesday. 

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee told supporters:

Last night, we stood in a crowded square outside the state Capitol in Madison. Teachers, fire fighters, police officers, moms, and dads chanted, “This is what democracy looks like.”

Republicans and Tea Party leaders declared victory in maintaining the majority. Gov. Scott Walker, perhaps the subject of a recall next year, told the MacIver Institute, “I’ve had great confidence in the voters.”

It’s a Kumbaya moment! At least, as close as we’re likely to get.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Voters Ruin Everything

William Endicott, former deputy managing editor of The Sacramento Bee, thinks the problem with California legislators is their “Let the people decide” attitude. In a recent op-​ed, Mr. Endicott argued that the initiative process allows politicians to shirk their responsibilities, to let decisions be made by voters at the ballot box. 

It’s an awfully convoluted notion: to make legislators actually do their jobs, citizens must back away and give those known to shirk their responsibilities a monopoly on legislative power.

Funny, in Congress and in the 26 states where voters lack the initiative, politicians happen to be shirking their responsibilities like it’s going out of style. There’s just not as much voters can do about it.

But Endicott’s argument doesn’t really concern legislators at all. It is about the voters of California, who have (to paraphrase him) ruined everything.

He writes: “Outcomes too often have been decided not by reasoned debate but by emotional appeals, mind-​numbing and misleading television commercials and direct mail, all of which do more to confuse than to enlighten.”

So Endicott looks for legislators to “crack down on signature gatherers” and “make it more difficult to qualify a measure.”

In other words, democracy was swell, but that new-​fangled TV is too much for gullible voters. Let’s hit the kill switch on direct democracy and put all our hope in our brainy, courageous legislators. 

In other words, Californians: Shut up and pay your taxes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Punishing Productivity

California Governor Jerry Brown just vetoed Senate Bill 168, writing, “It doesn’t seem very practical to me to create a system that makes productivity goals a crime.” 

Senate Bill 168 makes it illegal to pay someone circulating an issue petition based either directly or indirectly on the number of signatures gathered. In fact, had Brown signed SB 168 into law, you’d get thrown in jail for awarding a prize, say a campaign t‑shirt, to the volunteer who gathers the most signatures. 

Petition campaigns like productivity. They don’t want folks locked up for it.

Could undercutting productivity and doubling the cost of petitioning be the real goal of SB 168?

Perhaps outlawing incentives isn’t intended to slow the pace and super-​size the cost of a petition drive. But it does. Californians have only 150 days to gather hundreds of thousands of voter signatures, so a slowdown and added cost means issues blocked from reaching the voters.

In a Sacramento Bee op-​ed, Sen. Ellen Corbett, SB 168’s author, addressed concerns about diminished democracy, writing, “[I]n states that have enacted a similar law there has been no change in the number of initiatives qualifying for the ballot.” 

But a review of those states shows a change — for the worse. Oregon saw a roughly 50 percent reduction in initiatives. In Montana and North and South Dakota the number of citizen measures dropped. After passage of productivity bans in Nebraska and Wyoming, neither state’s voters have seen another initiative on their ballot. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.