Tag: California

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.

Categories
term limits

How Not to Fix a Failed State

“As long as unions and business buy our politicians and take every advantage for themselves …” writes Ron Kaye at Fox and Hounds Daily, “California will keep declining.”

Mr. Kaye notes a rare agreement between business and union lobbies, which have united “to pour millions into a ballot measure next June to sell us on the idea that giving legislators 14 years in the house of their choice is better than making them serve eight years in the Senate and six in the Assembly.”

Kaye has the figure wrong: It’s twelve years in either body. Though billed as a tightened term limit, down from the 14 years now theoretically possible (by switching houses) to the proposed dozen, few politicians are able to manage such switches, so in actuality the limit would be weakened, from a tight six or eight to twelve.

This, Kaye argues, would make it easier for special interests to buy instead of rent politicians. The measure is “just another political charade.”

But I think Kaye errs by going on to say that today’s leadership failure “can’t be fixed by law.”

California suffers from a political infrastructure problem far worse than any other state: too small a ratio between politicians and citizens, insulating representatives in huge districts.

While no fix is guaranteed, the state could use more representatives, not fewer. 

And that’s a constitutional fix. Added to existing term limits, it might help nudge California government out of its current (and disastrous) rut.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Creating a New Crime

California is wild and crazy, fruity and nutty. Not in Hollywood, but in Sacramento.

The state’s enormous prison population — so large that the Feds recently ordered California to release overcrowded prisoners — feeds an otherwise expensive prison system, straining the state’s strapped budget. 

So what did Golden State solons go and do?

They created a new crime.

Almost. Senate Bill 168 has passed both houses of the state’s General Assembly and sits on Governor Jerry Brown’s desk.

The bill would make it “a misdemeanor for a person to pay or to receive money or any other thing of value based on the number of signatures obtained on a state or local initiative, referendum, or recall petition.…”

The penalties are up to a year in jail or a $25,000 fine or both.

What is the compelling reason to criminalize paying people for being productive and gathering more signatures, rather than less?

Fraud. Or so supporters say. 

But instances of fraud on initiative petitions in California have dropped a whopping 78 percent over the last decade. Moreover, there’s no evidence that paying people on the number of signatures they gather induces fraud.

The Sacramento Bee urged Governor Brown to veto SB-​168 and prevent it from “raising the cost of qualifying measures, freezing out less wealthy groups, and making direct democracy more of a captive of well-​heeled interest groups.”

If you live in California, call the Governor’s office at (916) 445‑2841 and respectfully ask him to veto SB 168.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture initiative, referendum, and recall

What’s Next, Democracy?

Not all votes are democratic, for — as Stalin pointed out — it’s not who votes that counts, but who counts the votes.

Same for “town halls” and public discussions: Politicians regularly hold meetings with constituents the main point of which is to make sure that nothing too challenging gets aired.

This being the case, you might guess my reservations about “deliberative polling” in the “What’s Next California” vein.

This weekend three hundred “randomly selected” Californians gathered in Torrance to undergo what looks to be a three-​part process:

  1. Submit to polling on the major issues facing the crisis-​ridden state.
  2. Gather to discuss the issues, with fact-​sheets in hand, and lecturers to listen to and answer questions.
  3. Submit to polling at the end of the session, to see how many of the participants’ ideas have changed.

Project founder James Fishkin is obviously interested in the initiative process, but just as obviously interested in seeing it lean more towards a “progressive” direction. Of the three opinions on the program featured at Zócalo Public Square, I lean towards Tim Cavanaugh’s: “By combining polling with top-​down instruction from a panel of ‘experts,’ deliberative pollsters hope to determine how voting would change if voters’ opinions could be forced into compliance with establishmentarian thinking.…”

Athenian-​style public deliberation? Not really. The experts aren’t polled, so it’s obvious that they aren’t expected to modify their opinions. 

Besides, in a real democracy, the people would do their own research and bring along their own experts.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall

A Really Bad Sign

I’m traveling across California this week to raise awareness about a diaper load of legislation designed to restrict, thwart, inhibit, hamper, obstruct, impede, block and tackle California’s robust system of initiative and referendum. 

Politicians know they cannot abolish voter initiatives outright. They’d need voter approval. Instead, they seek to rig the rules so that people are nonetheless prevented from exercising their rights.

At CitizensinCharge​.org we’ve detailed the various legislative proposals, with one bill really standing out amidst the general stench: Senate Bill 448. Authored by State Senator Mark DeSaulnier, the bill has already passed the Senate and is pending in the State Assembly.

Sign of the Times

SB 448 would force any citizen gathering petitions to put an issue onto the ballot to wear a badge — really a small sign, with lettering the size I’m wearing in this picture. If the citizen petitions as a volunteer, the sign must read “VOLUNTEER SIGNATURE GATHERER”; if one is paid, then “PAID SIGNATURE GATHERER.” 

The sign must also contain the California county in which one is registered, or read: “NOT REGISTERED TO VOTE.”

DeSaulnier touts his legislation as simply providing “a little transparency.” But for those in power to force citizens to wear a message that politicians dictate suggests that they think of petitioning government as a permitted privilege rather than an inalienable right.

Though it’s easy to bring up ugly historical parallels, that doesn’t make Sen. DeSaulnier and those supporting this bill redcoats or Nazis. 

But they are petty, mean and unconstitutional.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Post-​script: You can email Sen. DeSaulnier at: senator.​desaulnier@​sen.​ca.​gov