Targeting Big Money In Ballot Initiatives

Whether or not Governor Schwarzenegger follows through on his threat to call a special election for voters to consider a series of ballot measures, he has brought to light a serious problem for California's democracy. The citizen initiative process is dying a slow death.

Much as Teddy Roosevelt busted the national trusts, maverick California governor Hiram Johnson pushed to adopt the initiative process nearly one hundred years ago to ensure that the public's say in government was not watered down by the undue influence of corporate trusts and railroad barons in the legislature.

To ensure that citizens don't waste time considering proposals that stand little chance of passing, initiative proponents must show some popular support before taking an idea to the electorate. Much like the committee process requires bill sponsors to garner support in the legislature before receiving a floor vote, initiative proponents must gather signatures from fellow citizens to qualify a question for the ballot.

But just as money can corrupt the legislature, it has now corrupted the initiative process. An idea makes the ballot only when its proponents spend cash, usually raised in big chunks from just a handful of people.

As our population has increased, signature thresholds to qualify an initiative have grown beyond what volunteer signature drives can accomplish. Even the recall campaign that ousted Gray Davis, which certainly proved popular enough with the voters, would not have made it to the ballot but for the big money put down by millionaire politician Darryl Issa.

The public space where citizens can gather signatures for initiatives is shrinking. Shopping malls and box stores routinely prevent signature gathering on their property.

Target, for example, has established a strict policy against soliciting. Last winter, they even kicked the Salvation Army's bell ringers off their property. This privatization of the town square is a major reason for the decline of the grassroots ballot initiative.

While the original idea was to protect people from entrenched interests, powerful corporations now use the initiative process themselves to counter a legislature that they find is unduly influenced by citizens. Target, for instance, recently gave $100,000 to a ballot committee called Citizens to Save California. These corporate "citizens" are working to qualify four ballot measures. They feel that teachers, nurses, and other public employees, are strong-arming the legislature to pass policies that make California a less profitable place to do business.

Interestingly enough, petitioners who were being paid with money from Target were recently seen petitioning at Target to qualify their questions for the ballot, despite Target's no solicitation policy.

To make things right, we should do two things. First we should make it easier for legitimate grassroots campaigns to place proposals on the ballot without having to spend a lot of money. Lowering the signature threshold is one idea, but perhaps a better way would be to create a secure process for citizens to circulate and sign petitions on the Internet. On-line signature collection is a considerably easier idea than on-line voting because unlike votes, which need to be kept secret, petition signatures are public and subject to verification.

But making it easier to qualify initiatives under the current system would only mean that wealthy interests would inundate us with all the more of their privatized initiatives. To control this, California must apply limits on financial contributions to ballot question campaigns.

Recognizing that ballot campaigns have become intertwined with candidate campaigns, the Fair Political Practices Commission has applied limits to initiative campaigns that are controlled by candidates. Although similar limits on federal candidates have already been upheld by the Supreme Court, the FPPC's limits are now facing review by a Sacramento judge. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez says he wants to fix the law so it will withstand court scrutiny. But even if they are eventually upheld, limits that only apply to candidate controlled ballot committees are easily avoided.

A better solution would be to limit contributions to all ballot campaigns to amounts that ordinary citizens can afford. Then, if Target's CEO wanted to give $100 to qualify a ballot initiative he thought was a good idea, he'd be free to do so. But, he wouldn't have an unfair advantage over the rest of us.