Category: initiative, referendum, and recall

Categories
ballot access First Amendment rights initiative, referendum, and recall

Red-​lining Democracy

Why does a fellow who’s the executive director of the Greenlining Institute want to red-​line democracy?

Recently, in the pages of California’s Capitol Weekly, Orson Aguilar called the state’s initiative process a “monster.” Mr. Aguilar’s main beef is that “huge corporations and business groups” spent “massive” amounts of money, and that of the more than $200 million spent on ballot measures “hardly any of it came from ordinary citizens.”

Whether one agrees with a corporation or a labor union or an interest of any kind, freedom of speech still carries moral weight. It’s worth noting that while Aguilar doesn’t like corporate spending on ballot measures, he probably doesn’t mind the corporate contributions that account for over 16 percent of the Greenlining Institute’s annual income.

But what was the result of business spending? He informs us, “Happily, many of these corporate initiatives were defeated …” 

Aguilar doesn’t name a single detrimental measure passed by voters. 

Still, according to Aguilar and seemingly every special interest group, something must be done to undercut the democratic check on government that citizens enjoy via initiative and referendum.

While admitting that the “huge number of signatures required” to place an initiative on the ballot “is almost impossible to do with just volunteers,” Aguilar bemoans the use of paid petitioners.

Never does he suggest the obvious: If we want the citizens’ voice in government, petition requirements should be made less onerous, not more.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall responsibility

Pension Declension

The ugliest truth about California’s newest, gimmick-​ridden budget, is that it doesn’t address the looming public employee pension issue. Adam Summers, a Reason Foundation policy analyst, gave some figures in the Orange County Register, explaining that these pensions have been “recently pegged at up to roughly $500 billion — roughly $36,000 for every household in California”:

Throw in the $50 billion or so in unfunded retiree health care liabilities, a $10 billion unemployment insurance fund debt, and the state’s $152 billion in general obligation bond debt, and you start to get a fuller sense of the state’s true financial problems.

The current plan to deal with this — reducing pensions for new state hires back to 1999 levels — Summers says was tried before, and failed. And by “failed” I mean revised after the fact and retroactively negated by the state Assembly. 

Summers says there’s only one way out: 

Politicians can’t continue to merely nibble around the edges of the state’s pension crisis. It’s time to admit that the 401(k)-style retirement plans that are good enough for nearly every private sector worker are going to have to be good enough for state workers, too.

But do politicians have the guts or the principles required? An initiative is needed. No level of government should be allowed to offer any pension not fully invested at the time of wage or salary payment — or promising a specified pay-out.

That would be as revolutionary as the legendary Prop 13.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability initiative, referendum, and recall

The Maine Con

Should taxpayers be forced to fund their own foes?

A group that opposes Maine’s public financing of campaigns — in particular the perverse requirement that the campaign spending of a candidate not participating in the public financing be matched by taxpayer-​funded dollars to the coffers of candidates who do participate — is now fighting another abuse of taxpayer dollars.

The Maine Heritage Policy Center has sued the Maine Municipal Association for using government funds to oppose ballot measures designed to save taxpayers money.

MMA doesn’t deny that the two million dollars it used to campaign against several tax-​cut initiatives in recent years are government funds. But the front group pretends that it is not really a “government entity,” even though its membership consists of municipal governments in Maine. Far from being a government entity, they say, they merely “provide professional services to our members as a nonprofit organization.” But this is a distinction without a difference.

The Lewiston Sun Journal observes that most folks would be “outraged to learn that our city council had voted to use municipal funds to influence a political campaign. In fact, we might say it is illegal.” Is the nature of what’s going on sanctified if the municipal campaign contributions are being routed through a nominally separate party? The MMA’s own articles of incorporation state that it must be “nonpolitical and nonpartisan.” That hardly describes spending millions in taxpayers’ money to foil tax-​cut campaigns.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall too much government

The Citizen’s Stop Sign

What an election year. It’s not just the drubbing dealt to many statist incumbents that warrants a little triumphalism. We can also cheer about ballot measures whose passage means the defeat of very specific attacks on the citizenry.

Several local referendums targeted all those ticket-​triggering red-​light cameras that have been popping up. The main purpose of the gotcha-​gizmos seems to be lunging for the wallets of hapless motorists, not enhancing anybody’s safety.

Voters are rejecting this fancy tax on driving. In Houston, a group called Citizens Against Red Light Cameras pushed for a ballot question to chuck the cameras. Voters passed it, despite the apoplectic opposition of the city council and the company operating the cameras, American Traffic Solutions. Camera ordinances were also felled in two Ohio towns, Chillicothe and Heath, and in College Station, Texas. In Anaheim, California, 73 percent said Yes to banning red-​light cameras.

It was a tougher battle in Mukilteo, Washington, where ATS tried to stop voters from deciding on the cameras. Citizen activist Tim Eyman, who also has a slew of successful tax-​limitation initiatives under his belt, led the effort to combat that obstructionism, and the state supreme court ordered ATS to back off. The kill-​the-​cameras measure went on to pass by 70 percent.

It’s great whenever voters call a halt to political predation. By no method can they do so more directly and effectively than via the right of initiative and referendum.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall too much government

The People Speak

Mainstream media often become so fixed on the major players in Washington, DC, that journalists miss the most telling democratic action: At state and local levels, regarding initiatives.

Nicely, there are exceptions. An editorial, last week, in The Washington Times was subtitled “Ballot initiatives advance a limited government agenda in the heartland,” and explained how “voters showed their displeasure with the country’s direction with their votes” … on particular ballot measures.

The editorial lists numerous important initiatives around the country: 

  • Oklahoma’s and Arizona’s nullification of Obamacare provisions (and Colorado’s failure to do so);
  • Nevada citizens killing “a sneaky amendment designed to undermine protections from eminent-​domain seizures for private gain”;
  • Several states blocking our president’s union-​vote rule revisions, known as card-check;
  • Louisiana “stopped public officials from voting themselves a salary boost until after they stand for re-election”;
  • Washington citizens overturned sales taxes on foodstuffs that left-​leaning folk regard as sinful, such as soda pop and candy and the like.

Washington State sported an even weightier initiative, one famously sponsored by Bill Gates’s dad. TV ads featured Bill Sr. getting dunked. It wasn’t a baptism. He was pitching for a “soak the rich” income tax in the state. The ad didn’t make a great deal of sense, and Evergreen State voters nixed the income tax once again. 

The Times editorial ends advising Democrats that they need “to listen to what the public has to say.” But, obviously, Republicans need to listen, too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Your Victory

Tuesday’s mid-​term elections amount to another watershed moment in American political history. Almost no one can stop talking about the success of (and prospects for) the “Tea Party” movement. I’m no different, except that, for me, the most interesting race in the land wasn’t about a candidate. It was a more direct victory for people controlling government.

I refer to Oklahoma’s State Question 750.

Regular readers know what I’m talking about. Last week I asked for help promoting the measure. My readers came through, and it may be their efforts — your efforts! — that put this crucial ballot initiative over the top.

Tuesday evening we thought we had lost. Results came in Wednesday morning, however, tipping the balance towards SQ-​750. Now, with unofficial results in from all precincts, we remain ahead 50.4 to 49.6 percent. We won by 7,649 votes (out of nearly a million). That’s close.

So, each last-​minute donor can be proud of really accomplishing something. Our ad, which you sponsored, almost certainly made the difference.

Oklahoma has been the toughest “initiative state,” the one with the most restrictions. Thanks to SQ-​750, and previous reforms pushed by Citizens in Charge and several Oklahoma groups, the state will sport more rational requirements on the petition process and the number of petition signatures.

In related news, Oklahoma’s term limits measure won big, as expected. 

Both of these measures will be instrumental in allowing citizens more control of their own government. 

Thank you.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.