A New People's Initiative Process

California needs to adopt a new citizens initiative process to accomplish the objectives that our existing process was created for a century ago. Our current system is too difficult for volunteer-based groups to use, but it is all too easy for well-heeled interests to buy their way onto the ballot by using paid signature gatherers.

A new People's Initiative would allow citizens to qualify a question for the ballot by demonstrating strong public support for a proposal without expending more resources than a well-organized grassroots effort could muster. There would be three steps required for a People's Initiative to qualify for the ballot.

The first step would be to gather not only signatures, but also contributions of $5 from supporting citizens. People's Initiative proponents would need 15,000 contributions of five dollars instead of the traditional requirement of five percent of voters in the last election for Governor - currently about 375,000 signatures. Arizona and Maine require a similar $5 qualifying contribution for candidates to receive voluntary public financing systems for their campaigns. The People's Initiative would also be voluntary, so proponents who were concerned about asking $5 from supporters could still use the traditional initiative.

After the qualifying stage, the Secretary of State would convene a deliberative poll of voters. A statistically representative sample of voters would spend a day hearing presentations from the initiative's proponents and opponents and then discussing the idea among themselves, much the way a jury considers a lawsuit. This technique, developed by Prof James Fishkin at Stanford, has been successfully used in the US and abroad. The initiative would proceed only if a majority of this voter jury supported it. The initiative proponents would be able to accept any amendments or technical changes recommended by the voter jury.

The third and final stage would be to present the proposal to the legislature, which would have 30 days to enact, amend, or reject the measure. If the initiative proponents agreed with the legislature's changes, they could accept them and the initiative would become law. Or, the proponents could accept only some, or none, of the amendments and proceed to take the question to the ballot. The voters guide would include both the recommendations of the voter deliberative survey and the legislative vote.

Once on the ballot, grassroots initiatives often face well-financed opposition from the same private interests that kept the ideas from moving in the legislature. Insurance companies, tobacco firms, and other corporate interests can dramatically outspend grassroots groups and kill an initiative that might have had two-thirds popular support going into the campaign.

The People's Initiative process would have two safeguards against big money attacks. First, any initiative campaign that qualified for the ballot would be eligible to receive public vouchers worth up to $100 from any registered voter in California. Professors Rick Hasen of Loyola Law School and Bruce Ackerman of Yale have long-suggested such a plan for candidate campaigns. But the voucher model of public financing works even better for ballot campaigns because it allows true public support to determine how much public money any initiative should receive to promote its idea. This would provide People's Initiative proponents with the minimal funds to run a barebones public education campaign. In exchange, the proponents would agree to abide by a voluntary spending limit.

If special interests spent huge sums in opposition to a People's Initiative, proponents would receive matching public funds so that they could answer the attacks. For instance, every dollar that was spent against a People's Initiative by a corporation, labor union, or from an individual contribution above $1,000 would result in a dollar going to the initiative proponents to defend their measure.

This People's Initiative has several advantages over our current system. It would produce higher quality initiatives because sponsors would have several opportunities to amend their proposal, just as legislators do. It would result in fewer questions going to the ballot because many proposals would be passed by the legislature once People's Initiative proponents could force a floor vote on a proposal. Perhaps most importantly, it would restore the original purpose of the initiative process by allowing citizens a fair chance to counter the power of corporate interests that use vast sums of money to kill public interest proposals both in the legislature and at the ballot.