Ban Ballot Initiatives

This AP report explains why ballot initiatives threaten already fragile state budgets. I've long been opposed to ballot initiatives and this is one reason I'm so against them. If voters mandate state programs by approving ballot measures then state legislatures have to fund them by taking money away from already budgeted programs or borrowing money. It's no way to run a state. The other reason I'm against ballot initiatives is that they run counter to our democratic system. Our system is based on representative democracy not direct democracy, and like many of the Founders I have a great distrust of direct democracy, it's too prone to reckless passion and manipulation. Representative democracy means that state legislatures have time to consider budgets and fund programs based on the established political process, a process that may also lend itself to abuse, but at least allows all the stakeholders and interested parties a voice in the process. The ballot initiatives allow private groups to do an end run around the standard democratic process, and I can't object too strongly to that. I would vote No on all ballot initiatives...except that now they are so deceptively worded that in many cases a No vote is actually a Yes vote. I think the real answer is to start a ballot initiative to ban ballot initiatives. Who's with me?

Comments

[Evan Ravitz]

Ballot initiatives are the origin of most reforms, such as women's suffrage (passed in 13 states before Congress went along), direct election of Senators (4 states), publicly financed elections (passed by initiative in 6 of 7 states with them), medical marijuana ( in 8 of 12 states) and increasing minimum wages (in all 6 states that tried in 2006). See http://Vote.org/initiatives for more examples and references. The media have seized on the problem initiatives. They generally kiss up to politicians.

Having promoted better and national ballot initiatives for 20 years, I've found the only occupational groups opposed to them are pro politicians and the lobbyists that buy them. Who's paying you to talk trash about government by the people?

[Joel]

Evan, thanks for your comment. No one is paying me for my blog, it's a nice idea though. I'm in the process of voting by mail right now, and I've been reviewing the ballot initiatives and I'm alarmed at how deceptive they are. Many of the are written in such a manner that a vote no is actually a yes vote. It's clear that these ballot initiatives are funded by commercial, corporate, and national interests and are designed to exploit the naivete of the average voter. This is a an abuse of democracy, not a celebration of it. No system is perfect, but I'd rather stay with our traditional representative democracy than trust our future to even more of these kinds of ballot initiatives.

[Bill Davis]

Ballot initiatives are the precursors to anarchy. The idea of representative government is that many positions can be evaluated and the best of ideas can be accommodated through intelligent compromise. The idea of initiatives is to convince enough people you are right and the majority that votes...rules. Unfortunately, the majority that votes is not the majority of our citizens. This allows for a well organized minority to bring about legislation that is not in the interest of the majority. This is the primary reason ballot initives are so popular at this time. If we are going to govern ourselves by initives, we may as well abolish the legislature and save money.

[Joel]

Bill, thanks for your comment. I agree, there is nothing so wrong with our traditional legislative process that needs fixing by a ballot initiative process that rewards special interests claiming to speak for the voters. People need to be reminded that the U.S. was founded to be a representative democracy - a republic - and not a direct democracy. The Founders actually distrusted the idea of direct democracy and we would be wise to adopt that some distrust.