California Voices

(originally published at Fox & Hounds Daily)
Do you have ideas to offer on initiative reform? Great. Now should be your moment.

The next few weeks should see public and media discussion of the process. I'll be moderating a free, public event in San Francisco this Wednesday night (Sept. 21), with panelists from across the country and the world and political spectrum offering ideas. We want to hear yours. You can reserve a seat here (For those of you in Southern California, there's a free, public event in LA on Oct. 5, with details here).

What makes this such a good time for discussion - and for the pursuit of comprehensive reform of the initiative process? Here are five reasons:

1.     Histories and birthdays.

When you have a big birthday, it's a good time to reflect. Well, the initiative is about to have a very big birthday. Next month, the California initiative - along with its siblings the referendum and the recall - will turn 100 years ago. Yes, it was in an October 1911 special election that California voters adopted statewide direct democracy. And to a striking extent, the rules they adopted then remain in place today. From the beginning, the initiative process was a powerful force for locking law in place. (There were also things like paid petition circulators that are considered, by some, modern maladies).

2.     It doesn't add to the budget deficit

So many ideas for improving California cost money. But initiative reform doesn't involve new entitlements or spending. It doesn't require tax cuts for a favored industry. Maybe there will be a special election somewhere down the road, or even a constitutional convention, or revision commission. But the costs of those procedures are peanuts.

3.     It's not a partisan issue.

At least not yet. Though Democrats have done a pretty good job making the issue more partisan by pushing for restrictions to the process and by playing with the election calendar for partisan advantage. Initiative reform is one area where there should be partisan agreement - if the parties are for what they say they are for.

Democrats say they want to get more people involved in politics, so opening up access to the process - with more time, more deliberation and the use of technology - is a natural Democratic cause. And Republicans say they want more fiscal responsibility, so bringing the initiative process under some of the controls of the budget process, and the checks and balances of regular legislation, would be a natural for a responsible GOP.

4.     The world is full of good models. Half the U.S. states have direct democracy at the statewide level, and most of the world's countries have some process on the books, usually at the regional or local level. California has many examples to learn from in devising initiative reform.

5.     Broader constitutional reform is impossible without initiative reform.

Any kind of thoughtful redesign of the California governing system must change three pieces: the election system, the budget system, and the initiative system. And while a constitutional convention or revision commission are necessary to get there, it's likely in initiative-mad California that initiatives will be involved somewhere in the process.

So if you must start somewhere, start with the initiative process first.