Citizens in Charge

Pete Peterson of the Davenport Institute for Public Engagement at Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy was spot on in his blasting of Democrat California Legislators’ systematic attempts to protect their majority control by smashing the state’s initiative, referendum and recall process. While Peterson’s criticism of “[t]he cavalcade of Democratic efforts to either constrain or modify the initiative and referendum process” is nothing new, his version adds a key element: a picture of what actual Californians—ones without an election to win, a donor to please, or an ideology to push—think about recent proposed changes:

In the most in-depth, multi-partisan, statewide survey of its kind, the “What’s Next California?” event brought together a statistically representative group of over 400 Californians during three days in late June to both learn about and express their opinions on a number of reform proposals - including the initiative process (full disclosure: I served on the project’s Advisory Committee). Provided with the same pro/con arguments propounded in the Capitol, the just-released results should provide Democrats some reasons to reconsider their current course.

Reconsider indeed. It turns out that citizens don’t like the proposed restrictions, and they really don’t like them once they find out what they really mean for the state [ephasis mine]:

Participants were asked, “Do you support allowing the Legislature to amend an initiative that has already been passed, subject to a two-thirds vote?” While 61% of all participants deemed this “Undesirable” at the start of the process, fully 73% of the total felt this way after learning more about the issue. At the party affiliation level this included a pre/post jump from 68% to 79% for Republicans, 53% to 67% for Democrats, and 65% to 78% for Independents.

Of the four discussed measures that would have given the Legislature some influence over the initiative process not a single one received more than a 45% “Desirable” result prior to the weekend’s discussions, and none earned higher than 37% afterwards. Republicans and Independents did show the highest levels of distrust of Legislative involvement, but Democrats followed them closely.

It’s probably no surprise that voters trust themselves more than Sacramento:

This is why, when this same representative group of Californians was asked to describe their feelings towards most of the state’s governing institutions, only “Your city/town and county’s government” ranked more favorably than the initiative/referendum process. And, importantly, pre/post deliberation support for the initiative system (those saying they were “extremely satisfied” with it) increased by a larger percentage (16 percentage points) than any other state governing body surveyed, with, again, Independents and Republicans leading the way. To compare, participants’ positive views of the State Legislature grew a meager two percentage points - from 10% to 12%.

As California marks the 100th anniversary of state petition rights, the people continue to value and cherish the right to influence their government through initiative, referendum, and recall and resist restrictive changes. So do their current and most recent governors. As we see above, rank-and-file Democrats value the process, and if Assemblyman Russ Wagner’s recent comment that, “it’s more important to preserve this process so that when Sacramento oversteps its bounds, or is not responsive to the voters, the public actually has a safety valve and a way to get their voices heard,” is any indication of his party’s stance on the process then the minority party (Republicans) value it too. The question then, is why are Democrat legislators—such as Sens. Ellen Corbett and Mark DeSaulnier and Asm. Richard Gordon—and the Secretary of State bucking their constituents, their party members, and their own governor in order to make sure California voters have less say in their government? Are they that power hungry?