"Direct Democracy" has a noble sound to it.  Its instruments, Initiative, Referendum, and Recall, were introduced by Progressives about a century ago, and they were introduced for noble reasons.  The idea was to take politics out of smoke-filled rooms and into the streets, where regular people could act on their own behalf, rather than rely on pols controlled by the "trusts".   Did this work?  How long? And if it no longer works as its advocates intended, what if anything can be done about it?  This entry might be a little shorter than I usually post, and filled with links to provide the major support for its thesis: If these reforms worked at all, they worked for a very short time, and in the last thirty years they've become a danger to liberal social interests.



Hiram W. Johnson of California was the father of I.R.R.

    A voter Initiative is a piece of legislation proposed by any citizen that is circulated through a petition phase to qualify for the ballot. If it receives a statutory minimum number of valid signatures it qualifies for the ballot and is then voted for by the electorate. Twenty-four US States allow statewide initiatives.

    The referendum is a petition from citizens to seek an election to put legislation that has passed the executive and legislature up to a vote of the citizenry. The referendum provides a form of citizen veto for legislation. Sometimes even the referendum causes politicians to reverse course of legislation. In California the referendum process was used to qualify a referendum on SB60, a piece of legislation that would have extended drivers licenses to illegal immigrants. The legislature quickly responded by repealing the unpopular legislation instead of defending it in a spring election the following year.

    Perhaps amongst the most controversial form of popular democracy is the recall. The recall is a process by which the people seek to remove a elected official from office. While it is commonly used in some municipalities, it has only been used successfully against a Governor twice, against Lynn Frazier in 1921 and against California Governor Gray Davis in 2003. The exact details of state recall statutes vary, but it is amongst the least popular of the three different forms of direct democracy. Only 18 states allow for the recall of state officials.
    Extempprep.org, Initiative, Referendum, Recall: Direct Democracy

    
Chiefly, Initiative and Referendum have been used to impose limits on state or local governments to raise taxes, or in some cases to require them to be lowered-without reference to services state and local governments traditionally supply.  While this sort of thing actually began in the 1920s, the big push came following 1975.  California's Proposition 13 is probably the most famous of these, and as California is preparing to write IOUs as the budget deadlock there continues, it continues to wreak havoc.  East Coasters are probably as familiar with Proposition 2.5, by which Massachusetts citizens imposed limits on their towns and cities to tax property.  It also lowered the excise tax on automobiles-the more expensive the auto the more the tax savings.  Similar limits on the ability to tax have been adopted by initiative in other jurisdictions.  Massachusetts' local governments were sustained by state contributions to local budgets-but this year and in other tough times the State's contributions have been reduced, leaving localities between rocks and a hard places. 

The promise of lower taxes is almost irresistible, and methinks that public officials have done a terrible job correlating benefits and costs.  We know there is no free lunch, but if the menu were placed before us in a bit more attractively we might order the plat du jour a little more enthusiastically.   As it is, the menu is rigged against the public by a number of practices never dreamed of by Governor Johnson:

1. No one anticipated the use of professional signature grabbers being paid to acquire the minimum number of signatures to get a question on the ballot.  The number of signatures varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but in no jurisdiction is it so large to make the costs prohibitive to the deep pockets crowd.
2. There is no requirement that persons soliciting signatures tell the truth about the issue for which they're working.
3. The funds public officials have available to fight an initiative or referendum are severely limited or non-existent.  While the money folk can not only hire firms to conduct the campaign, they can also use their own employees.  In most jurisdictions public servants are forbidden to work against these campaigns.
4. I probably don't have to remind anyone here of Proposition Eight out in California.  Democracy has two objectives: majority will and minority rights.  "Direct Democracy" is singularly unsuccessful in protecting those.   The record is pretty dismal across the country, as this publication on rejection of Same Sex Marriage from the University of Southern California's Initiative and Reform Institute shows.  There are a lot of interesting materials for political junkies at that website.
   

As far as recall goes, I think I need to point no further than the Gray Davis recall in 2003.    There is a certain poetic justice as The Gubernator faces his own budget crisis.  Oh California What Hast Thou Wrought?



Could it get worse?  Yep, it could.  The Supreme Court has delayed ruling on a case which could gut McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation.  We could be in a situation where Corporate "Personhood" strikes again, and wonder of wonders, there's a group all ready to take "Direct Democracy" national.  The group's name?  The Direct Democracy Center.  There is no list of persons responsible for this travesty, of course.  If the Supreme Court does its worst, contributors to Political Action Committees may have enhanced anonymity.  But among the persons these anonymities consider worth watching are Bill O'Reilly, Glen Beck, David Horowitz, Laura Ingraham and Patrick J. Buchanan.  Patrick J?  Is he putting on airs?  Just a little sample of their rhetoric and I'll close:

    Just remember one thing: The Obama phenomenon and the economic crisis are brewing the perfect storm, in which a magnificent obsession collides with a malignant deception that -- if we let it -- could unleash more social, political and economic devastation upon us than we can handle.  Unfortunately, a reckoning may be what is needed for an American Awakening.

So what's the answer?  Anyone have one?  My own thinking is that the true Direct Democracy follows the Community Organizing Model: We organize, and DIRECTLY force our representatives to represent us, or, hey, there are other pols we can tempt to take their places.