"All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit." Texas Constitution, Article 1

A Jewel in the Crown of 
American Self-Government
By Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe Staff, 6/7/2001

IN THE TWO-year political cycle that culminated on
Election Day 2000, some 350 initiative petitions were
submitted to election officials in the 24 states that
permit laws to be passed at the ballot box.  Of those 350,
only 76 made it onto the ballot.  And of those 76,
only 36 were adopted.  Of all the initiatives proposed for
the 2000 election, in other words, 90% ended in failure.

In the same 24 states, meanwhile, more than
10,000 laws were enacted by state legislators.
Totals for the 2000 cycle aren't yet available, but
according to the Council of State Governments,
lawmakers in the 24 states passed 11,000 laws in
the 1998 cycle, and a whopping 17,000 in the
two years before that.

It's hard to imagine that anyone could look at those
numbers - 36 laws created by ballot initiative versus
10,000 or more created by state legislatures - and
conclude that initiatives are out of control.  But there
are such people.  Especially in the state legislatures.

Initiatives are the last resort of desperate citizens,
a way to check the power of remote or arrogant lawmakers.
When politicians refuse to heed the public, when special
interests block reform, when the governor is disdainful,
when the courts offer no relief, voters in 24 states still
have some leverage: They can bypass the Legislature
and change the statute-book themselves.

As the numbers make clear, this doesn't happen
very often, but even a little citizen lawmaking seems
to drive politicians crazy.  It offends them that ordinary
voters have the chutzpah to demand a say,
once in a while, on an issue of public policy.

To stem this plague of democratic decision-making,
they have taken to sabotaging it with onerous rules:
They hike the number of signatures needed to qualify
a measure for the ballot.  They ban payments to
signature collectors.  They require petition circulators
to be registered voters. They only permit initiatives
that deal with a ''single subject'' - a term then
construed to invalidate even narrowly drawn ballot
questions.  They demand that signatures be gathered
from far-flung corners of the state - a high barrier in
huge but sparsely populated Western states.

If they are completely without shame - if they are,
say, the Massachusetts General Court - they openly
flout the law.  In 1992, 75,000 Bay State citizens signed
a petition to put a term-limits amendment on the ballot.
Under the state constitution, the Legislature was required
--- not allowed, required --- to take a vote; if 25 percent
of the members backed the measure, it would have
moved to the ballot.  But the Legislature, manipulated by
then-Senate President William Bulger, refused to vote,
and the amendment died.

It is bad enough that lawmakers go to such lengths to
undermine the initiative process. Even worse is when
they do so to defend the indefensible.

The Oklahoma Legislature, to take the most egregious
current example, has just approved an amendment
doubling the number of signatures required for any
ballot measure involving animals.  The reason for this
double standard?  To block an initiative outlawing the
grotesque bloodsport of cockfighting.  Incredibly, it is
still legal in Oklahoma to attach razors to the legs of
roosters and then goad them into slashing each other
while spectators bet on which one will bleed to death first.
Even more incredibly, Oklahoma 's elected representatives
are willing to erode Oklahoma 's democratic system to
protect this barbaric entertainment.

Travesties like these make it easy to understand the
disesteem in which the average voter holds the average
state legislator.  ''Most Americans believe their elected
officials look out first for themselves, then for their
contributors, and put serving the public well down on
their list of priorities,'' writes David Broder.  ''To tell
American voters today that a politician is better motivated,
more civic minded, and a better custodian of the
commonweal than the voters themselves might be
an insult to their intelligence.''

Nicely balancing the voters' low opinion of legislators
is their high opinion of the initiative process.  In a new
Rasmussen poll, 68 percent of respondents nationwide
support the right of citizens to bring proposed laws
to the ballot; only 13 percent oppose it.  By a similarly
lopsided 65-20, they say a law adopted by the voters is
more likely to be in the public interest than a bill passed
by the legislature.  And they are under no illusion about
the reason legislators keep finding new way to regulate
ballot questions: It is to preserve their power (67 percent),
not to protect the public (16 percent).

Citizen initiatives are good for democracy and a jewel
of self-government.  More often than not, they bear out
Holmes's dictum that the best test of truth is the power of
an idea to get itself accepted in the competition of
the market.  A ballot measure that wins the electorate's
approval is likely to have been broadly publicized,
vigorously debated, carefully analyzed, and widely discussed.
If only the same could be said about all our laws.

Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com.

This story ran on page A18 of the Boston Globe on 6/7/2001 .
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.

     A point not made in Jeff Jacoby's column
     is that there is hardly a finer education for
     the electorate than that which takes place in
     the debates on statewide ballot propositions
     --- not just the ones approved by the voters,
     but also the ones that voters reject.    M. F.