History
Among the earliest initiative and referendum advocates in
Pennsylvania was Charles Fremont Thylor, M.D., of Philadelphia. Dr. Taylor,
one of the movement’s most successful publicists, edited and published its
periodical Equity (originally Equity Series) for over a decade. Thylor
collaborated with Prof. Frank Parsons of Boston in publishing several of
Parson’s reformist works. Parsons’ The City for the People, a guide to the
reform of city government, included a 132-page chapter on initiative,
referendum, and recall, which they later published separately.
Although Thylor’s publications had a nationwide impact, efforts for I&R
foundered in his own state. Under the leadership of Finley Acker of
Philadelphia and Clarence Van Dyke Tiers of Pittsburgh, the Pennsylvania
Direct Legislation League waged an unsuccessful, 20-year battle against
“the rule of the corporation machine” headed by Republican boss Boies
Penrose. In July 1909 State Rep. Hyatt M. Cribbs wrote that the state house
of representatives “is so overwhelmingly machine that I have little hope of
ever getting my [I&R] bill out of committee.”
The biggest victory for I&R advocates came in 1914, when they
succeeded in persuading the legislature to pass a law allowing I&R in
third-class cities - a category that included most of the major cities of the
state except the two biggest, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Few initiative campaigns in Pennsylvania have attracted much
attention outside the local jurisdictions in which they have taken place.
One exception was the May 1983 vote in Bucks County (an elite rural area
just north of Philadelphia) to block construction of a massive pump that
would have drawn water from the Delaware River. The project drew
opposition from environmentalists and voters, who passed the anti-pump
initiative by a 56 percent margin. The Philadelphia Electric Company,
which wanted the water to cool a nuclear plant, fought a five-year legal
battle to build the pump anyway, and won a state ruling in its favor in
1988.
Excerpted from the Initiative & Referendum Almanac by M. Dane Waters.