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BLAKE: Showing some initiative

Peter Blake

Published October 30, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Just as an effective prosecutor can, as they say, persuade a grand jury to "indict a ham sandwich," so can an initiative proponent with deep pockets put one on the Colorado ballot. On rye, with or without mustard, and as either a statute or a constitutional amendment.

Of course it helps if the sponsor can enlist a brigade of hungry and itinerant signature gatherers, paid by the piece and unfettered by either knowledge or principle.

And the sponsors can. Initiatives, which were once run by eager volunteers who believed in causes, have now spawned an industry. Signature-collection firms are for hire. They don't care what you're pushing. And increasingly, neither do the political consultants who specialize in promoting or opposing the issues that qualify for the ballot. You got the cash, they'll take the job. The profit can run to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The legislative process has often been compared to a sausage factory; the initiative process is, well, a deli turning out ham sandwiches.

Jennie Drage Bowser, a staffer with the National Conference of State Legislatures, may be the nation's leading expert on the initiative process. She discussed Colorado's system Tuesday at the City Club of Denver, concentrating on what Referendum O would do to it.

The NCSL takes no stand on any particular issue but takes a dim view of the initiative process in general - not surprising, since member bodies tend to be hostile to letting everyone vote on issues they consider to be their exclusive purview. Initiatives, Bowser suggested, encroach on "the efficiency of state legislatures."

As well they should! No rational person wants an efficient legislature. The people are better served by slow, tortured compromise or, better yet, deadlock.

Two dozen states authorize initiatives, but the process is active in just half of them. Some permit plebiscites only on statutes, some only on constitutional amendments. Fourteen, including Colorado, permit public votes on both.

In order to slow the growth of the already thick state constitution, Referendum O would make it more difficult to put an amendment on the ballot by requiring roughly 20 percent more signatures. It would also require at least 8 percent of the signatures come from each congressional district. Current law has no geographical requirement.

As a sort of trade-off, the signature requirement for statutes would be reduced by 20 percent. What's more, the legislature couldn't amend or kill an initiated statute with less than a two-thirds vote for the first five years. Now it can amend one at any time by majority vote.

Even with the changes, it would still be easier to amend the constitution in Colorado than in other states.

Colorado once prohibited paying petition circulators but our law was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1988. Most are paid per signature, but other states require that they be paid an hourly wage or a flat rate.

Those are tempting restrictions, considering the stories circulators spin, but it's hard to believe they could withstand a court challenge.

On a recent radio show, Bowser noted that states with ballot initiatives tend to have slightly higher voter turnouts.

It's easy to understand why. Our recent senators and congressmen have tended to be a bland, depressing lot, voting with their party's leadership and not making any particular mark. They get elected and re-elected without stirring much passion or enthusiasm. It's more fun to vote for - or more often against - initiatives, knowing that your vote will have a more direct impact.

It looks as though some conservatives are souring on the initiative. As former Treasurer Mark Hillman noted in a recent Op-Ed, the last initiative that limited the power of government was the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights in 1992. Now they're more often used to increase the power of government.

This year's ballot is unusually long and the blue book is thick. Studying the issues can be tedious. Still, it's better to have the power of initiative than not have it.

Peter Blake is a former Rocky Mountain News political columnist. He can be reached at pblake0705@comcast.net.

Comments

  • October 30, 2008

    4:07 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    roger44 writes:

    The statement in the piece that our recent politicians are bland is so true. They sit on their duffs and fail to address a number of issues that need attention. Failure to regulate funeral directors is one. One of the few states that don't. they are on the bandwagon for education, for the kids they say, yet pouring more money into it has been a dismal failure. They don't pay attention to detail, hence the politicians in Black hawk can spend money for their "historic" homes. These slime balls will find a loophole to rip off tax dollars.

  • October 30, 2008

    6:57 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    VVVV writes:

    The legislature is a dog food manufacturer, only turning out products unfit for human consumption. That and spending their time asking the NFL for more televised games, or investigating Major league baseball, while retirees on social security and children in schools starve. Granted that's the federal government, but the state government has been just as bad. Look at their half wit attempt at opening the flood gates on public spending by denying TABOR refunds in perpetuity.

    Always vote against incumbents until they get off their lazy butts and start earning their keep. Or at least until they stop treating the voters as imbiciles incapable of telling good bills from bad. And yes TABOR is a good bill, measured substantially by the amount of whining the legislature does regarding it. That was its purpose, and Colorado being one of the most educated states in the country, I would suggest that the general public is more intelligent than the representatives they elect. After all, we choose to not go into politics unless there is something we feel strong enough about to support. Then we have the choice to make it an amendment to the constitution specifically so the legislature can't disregard it two months later. Is there a bottom limit to how stupid they think we are?

  • October 30, 2008

    8:55 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    p_myers661 writes:

    Is there a bottom limit to how stupid they think we are?
    NOPE

    Look at amendment 59. They will kill TABOR rebates and spending limits in one move. They stick an "Edukashun" label on it and show a video of kids in a school answering "questions" about 59.

    Trouble is, the answers are all lies. They don't even have to ask us for permission to raise taxes because, with no spending limits, they can spend,spend spend and not worry about the dumb clucks who work for that money.
    If 59 passes, the amount funded for schools will grow at first. As the actual amount increases in that sack of money, politicians will suddenly discover that there is no definition for education so anything goes.

    In the meantime, they will have made it impossible to ever constrain spending because Ref O will make it cost too much for mere citizens to put anything on the ballot. All I can do is pray there is someone out there with enough money to put NO on O signs out there. If not, we might just discover that a right with too many limits on it is no longer a right. It's a joke.

  • October 31, 2008

    7:46 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    VVVV writes:

    Have some faith in the intelligence of the common voter. 59 should die because it would raise taxes, and O should die because it takes power away from those same voters. I think all of the ballot issues will actually make more people read the blue book to make up their own minds, leading to much more educated voting. I believe the people will be smart enough to see when they are being swindled, and force the rules of TABOR to actually be followed if the legislature truly wants to increase taxes.