Initiative and referendum
Encyclopedia
In the politics of the United States
, initiative and referendum is a process that allows citizens of many U.S. state
s to place new legislation
on a popular ballot, or place laws recently passed by the legislature
on the ballot, and vote on it
.
Initiative and referendum, along with recall election
s and popular primary election
s, is one of the signature reforms of the Progressive Era
.
It is written into several state constitutions
, particularly in the West
.
The Progressive Era was one of reforms aimed at breaking the concentrated, some would say monopoly
, power of certain corporation
s and trusts
. Many Progressives felt that state legislatures were part of this problem and that they were essentially "in the pocket" of certain wealthy interests. They sought a method to counter this – a way in which average persons could become directly involved in the political process. One of the methods they came up with was the initiative and referendum. Since 1904 till 2007 some 2231 statewide referendums initiated by citizens were held in the USA. 909 of these initiatives have been approved. Perhaps even greater is the number of such referendums called by state legislatures or mandatory - 600 compared to 311 civic initiatives in 2000-2007.
Initiatives and referendums—collectively known as "ballot measures," "propositions," or simply "questions"—differ from most legislation passed by representative democracies; ordinarily, an elected legislative body
develops and passes laws. Initiatives and referendums, by contrast, allow citizens to vote directly on legislation.
In many U.S. states, ballot measures may originate by several different processes:
: they fear excessive majoritarianism
(tyranny of the majority
) as a result, believing that minority group
s may be harmed.
Other criticisms are that initiatives result in provisions being added to constitutions that would be better subjects for the more flexible statutory law, which can be more easily revised to fit changing circumstances, and that they clutter constitutions, which are supposed to be basic frameworks of government and not excessively detailed plans, with minutae, making them unwieldy. Many from both sides of the political spectrum further feel that lawmaking is best left to legislators, who presumably have a deeper interest in and more than a passing familiarity with issues and are best equipped to deal with them, a position which strikes "I & R" supporters as both anti-democratic
and elitist
. A further criticism is that an excessive number of propositions makes ballots too long and too incomprehensible to voters with only an average or less interest in the process and makes the entire voting procedure take too long, with very long lines forming as voters attempt to read initiative after carefully worded initiative. In response to this criticism, some jurisdictions place a limit on the number of initiatives which can be submitted to the voters at any one election. The metropolitan
charter of Nashville, Tennessee
, for example, limits the number of voter-sponsored initiatives which may be considered in any one election to two, a rather extreme example, but many other jurisdictions which have "I & R" as a part of their government have taken similar steps to limit it.
Other criticisms are that competing initiatives with conflicting provisions can create legal difficulties when both pass; and that when the initiatives are proposed before the end of the legislative session, the legislature can make statutory changes that weaken the case for passing the initiative. Yet another criticism is that as the number of required signatures has risen in tandem with populations, "initiatives have moved away from empowering the average citizen" and toward becoming a tool for well-heeled special interests to advance their agendas. John Diaz writes:
In some cases, voters have passed initiatives that were subsequently repealed or drastically changed by the legislature. For instance, legislation passed by the voters as an Arizonan medical cannabis
initiative was subsequently gutted by the Arizona legislature
. To prevent such occurrences, initiatives are sometimes used to amend the state constitution and thus prevent the legislature from changing it without sending a referendum to the voters; however, this produces the problems of inflexibility mentioned above. Accordingly, some states are seeking a middle route. For example, Colorado's Referendum O would require a two-thirds vote for the legislature to change statutes passed by the voters through initiatives, until five years after such passage. This would allow the legislature to easily make uncontroversial changes.
An objection not so much to the initiative concept, but to its present implementations, is that signature challenges are becoming a political tool, with state officials and opposing groups litigating the process, rather than simply taking the issue fight to voters. Signatures can be declared void based on technical omissions, and initiatives can be thrown out based on statistical samplings of signatures. Supporters lacking necessary funds to sustain legal battles can find their initiative taken off the ballot.
and representative democracy
.
is a proposal to amend the United States Constitution
allow for ballot initiatives at the federal level
.
to question and hear from advocates and experts regarding a ballot measure; then deliberate and reflect together to come up with statements that support and/or oppose the measure. The state would organize such a review of each ballot measure, and include the panelists' statements in the voters' pamphlet. Healthy Democracy Oregon organized a trial run of the process in September, 2008, on a measure on the November ballot. '"It was exhausting, but it was exciting to have a group of people with hugely diverse backgrounds and experience listening carefully to both sides and all respectful to one another," said Lorene Wallick'
Each state has individual requirements to qualify initiatives for the ballot. Generally, all 24 states and the District of Columbia follow steps similar to:
Politics of the United States
The United States is a federal constitutional republic, in which the President of the United States , Congress, and judiciary share powers reserved to the national government, and the federal government shares sovereignty with the state governments.The executive branch is headed by the President...
, initiative and referendum is a process that allows citizens of many U.S. state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
s to place new legislation
Legislation
Legislation is law which has been promulgated by a legislature or other governing body, or the process of making it...
on a popular ballot, or place laws recently passed by the legislature
Legislature
A legislature is a kind of deliberative assembly with the power to pass, amend, and repeal laws. The law created by a legislature is called legislation or statutory law. In addition to enacting laws, legislatures usually have exclusive authority to raise or lower taxes and adopt the budget and...
on the ballot, and vote on it
Direct democracy
Direct democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...
.
Initiative and referendum, along with recall election
Recall election
A recall election is a procedure by which voters can remove an elected official from office through a direct vote before his or her term has ended...
s and popular primary election
Primary election
A primary election is an election in which party members or voters select candidates for a subsequent election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election....
s, is one of the signature reforms of the Progressive Era
Progressive Era
The Progressive Era in the United States was a period of social activism and political reform that flourished from the 1890s to the 1920s. One main goal of the Progressive movement was purification of government, as Progressives tried to eliminate corruption by exposing and undercutting political...
.
It is written into several state constitutions
State constitution (United States)
In the United States, each state has its own constitution.Usually, they are longer than the 7,500-word federal Constitution and are more detailed regarding the day-to-day relationships between government and the people. The shortest is the Constitution of Vermont, adopted in 1793 and currently...
, particularly in the West
Western United States
.The Western United States, commonly referred to as the American West or simply "the West," traditionally refers to the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. Because the U.S. expanded westward after its founding, the meaning of the West has evolved over time...
.
History
- Main article: History of direct democracy in the United StatesHistory of direct democracy in the United StatesThe history of direct democracy amongst non-Native Americans in the United States dates from the 1630s in the New England Colonies. Some New England town meetings still carry on that tradition.-Progressive Era:...
The Progressive Era was one of reforms aimed at breaking the concentrated, some would say monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
, power of certain corporation
Corporation
A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...
s and trusts
Trust company
A trust company is a corporation, especially a commercial bank, organized to perform the fiduciary of trusts and agencies. It is normally owned by one of three types of structures: an independent partnership, a bank, or a law firm, each of which specializes in being a trustee of various kinds of...
. Many Progressives felt that state legislatures were part of this problem and that they were essentially "in the pocket" of certain wealthy interests. They sought a method to counter this – a way in which average persons could become directly involved in the political process. One of the methods they came up with was the initiative and referendum. Since 1904 till 2007 some 2231 statewide referendums initiated by citizens were held in the USA. 909 of these initiatives have been approved. Perhaps even greater is the number of such referendums called by state legislatures or mandatory - 600 compared to 311 civic initiatives in 2000-2007.
Types of initiatives and referendums
Legislature
A legislature is a kind of deliberative assembly with the power to pass, amend, and repeal laws. The law created by a legislature is called legislation or statutory law. In addition to enacting laws, legislatures usually have exclusive authority to raise or lower taxes and adopt the budget and...
develops and passes laws. Initiatives and referendums, by contrast, allow citizens to vote directly on legislation.
In many U.S. states, ballot measures may originate by several different processes:
- InitiativeInitiativeIn political science, an initiative is a means by which a petition signed by a certain minimum number of registered voters can force a public vote...
, in which any citizen or organization may gather a predetermined number of signatures to qualify a measure for the ballot. (These may be further divided into constitutional amendmentConstitutional amendmentA constitutional amendment is a formal change to the text of the written constitution of a nation or state.Most constitutions require that amendments cannot be enacted unless they have passed a special procedure that is more stringent than that required of ordinary legislation...
s and statutory initiatives. Statutory initiatives typically require fewer signatures to qualify for the ballot.) - Popular ReferendumReferendumA referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...
, in which a predetermined number of signatures (typically lower than the number required for an initiative) qualifies a ballot measure repealing a specific act of the legislature. - Legislative referralLegislative referralA Legislative referral is a form of referendum in which a legislature puts proposed legislation up for popular vote , rather than through the initiative or referendum process...
(aka "legislative referendum"), in which the legislature puts proposed legislation up for popular vote (either voluntarily or, in the case of a constitutional amendment, as a necessary part of the procedure.)
Objections to the system
The initiative and referendums process have critics. Some argue that initiatives and referendums undermine representative government by circumventing the elected representatives of the people and allowing the people to directly make policyPolicy
A policy is typically described as a principle or rule to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome. The term is not normally used to denote what is actually done, this is normally referred to as either procedure or protocol...
: they fear excessive majoritarianism
Majoritarianism
Majoritarianism is a traditional political philosophy or agenda which asserts that a majority of the population is entitled to a certain degree of primacy in society, and has the right to make decisions that affect the society...
(tyranny of the majority
Tyranny of the majority
The phrase "tyranny of the majority" , used in discussing systems of democracy and majority rule, is a criticism of the scenario in which decisions made by a majority under that system would place that majority's interests so far above a dissenting individual's interest that the individual would be...
) as a result, believing that minority group
Minority group
A minority is a sociological group within a demographic. The demographic could be based on many factors from ethnicity, gender, wealth, power, etc. The term extends to numerous situations, and civilizations within history, despite the misnomer of minorities associated with a numerical statistic...
s may be harmed.
Other criticisms are that initiatives result in provisions being added to constitutions that would be better subjects for the more flexible statutory law, which can be more easily revised to fit changing circumstances, and that they clutter constitutions, which are supposed to be basic frameworks of government and not excessively detailed plans, with minutae, making them unwieldy. Many from both sides of the political spectrum further feel that lawmaking is best left to legislators, who presumably have a deeper interest in and more than a passing familiarity with issues and are best equipped to deal with them, a position which strikes "I & R" supporters as both anti-democratic
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
and elitist
Elitism
Elitism is the belief or attitude that some individuals, who form an elite — a select group of people with intellect, wealth, specialized training or experience, or other distinctive attributes — are those whose views on a matter are to be taken the most seriously or carry the most...
. A further criticism is that an excessive number of propositions makes ballots too long and too incomprehensible to voters with only an average or less interest in the process and makes the entire voting procedure take too long, with very long lines forming as voters attempt to read initiative after carefully worded initiative. In response to this criticism, some jurisdictions place a limit on the number of initiatives which can be submitted to the voters at any one election. The metropolitan
Consolidated city-county
In United States local government, a consolidated city–county is a city and county that have been merged into one unified jurisdiction. As such it is simultaneously a city, which is a municipal corporation, and a county, which is an administrative division of a state...
charter of Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
, for example, limits the number of voter-sponsored initiatives which may be considered in any one election to two, a rather extreme example, but many other jurisdictions which have "I & R" as a part of their government have taken similar steps to limit it.
Other criticisms are that competing initiatives with conflicting provisions can create legal difficulties when both pass; and that when the initiatives are proposed before the end of the legislative session, the legislature can make statutory changes that weaken the case for passing the initiative. Yet another criticism is that as the number of required signatures has risen in tandem with populations, "initiatives have moved away from empowering the average citizen" and toward becoming a tool for well-heeled special interests to advance their agendas. John Diaz writes:
In some cases, voters have passed initiatives that were subsequently repealed or drastically changed by the legislature. For instance, legislation passed by the voters as an Arizonan medical cannabis
Medical cannabis
Medical cannabis refers to the use of parts of the herb cannabis as a physician-recommended form of medicine or herbal therapy, or to synthetic forms of specific cannabinoids such as THC as a physician-recommended form of medicine...
initiative was subsequently gutted by the Arizona legislature
Arizona Legislature
The Arizona Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Arizona. It is a bicameral legislature that consists of a lower house, the House of Representatives, and an upper house, the Senate. There are 60 Representatives and 30 Senators...
. To prevent such occurrences, initiatives are sometimes used to amend the state constitution and thus prevent the legislature from changing it without sending a referendum to the voters; however, this produces the problems of inflexibility mentioned above. Accordingly, some states are seeking a middle route. For example, Colorado's Referendum O would require a two-thirds vote for the legislature to change statutes passed by the voters through initiatives, until five years after such passage. This would allow the legislature to easily make uncontroversial changes.
An objection not so much to the initiative concept, but to its present implementations, is that signature challenges are becoming a political tool, with state officials and opposing groups litigating the process, rather than simply taking the issue fight to voters. Signatures can be declared void based on technical omissions, and initiatives can be thrown out based on statistical samplings of signatures. Supporters lacking necessary funds to sustain legal battles can find their initiative taken off the ballot.
Proposed reforms
Some proposed reforms include paying signature-gatherers by the hour, rather than by the signature (to reduce incentives for fraud) and increasing transparency by requiring major financial backers of initiatives to be disclosed to potential signatories. Other proposals include having a "cooling-off" period after an initiative qualifies, in which the legislature can obviate the need for the initiative by passing identical legislation, or an alternative version acceptable to the initiative's sponsors. It has also been proposed that proxy voting be combined with initiative and referendum to form a hybrid of direct democracyDirect democracy
Direct democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...
and representative democracy
Representative democracy
Representative democracy is a form of government founded on the principle of elected individuals representing the people, as opposed to autocracy and direct democracy...
.
National initiative
The national initiativeNational initiative
National initiative refers to proposals within the United States to allow for ballot initiatives at the federal level. Currently, this is being proposed by Mike Gravel, a former U.S. Senator, and The Democracy Foundation, a non-profit non-governmental organization...
is a proposal to amend the United States Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
allow for ballot initiatives at the federal level
Federal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...
.
Citizens' Initiative Review
Healthy Democracy Oregon, and a similar organization in Washington State, propose a Citizens' Initiative Review process. This brings together a representative cross-section of voters as a citizens' juryCitizens' jury
A Citizens' Jury is a mechanism of participatory action research that draws on the symbolism, and some of the practices, of a legal trial by jury. It generally includes three main elements:...
to question and hear from advocates and experts regarding a ballot measure; then deliberate and reflect together to come up with statements that support and/or oppose the measure. The state would organize such a review of each ballot measure, and include the panelists' statements in the voters' pamphlet. Healthy Democracy Oregon organized a trial run of the process in September, 2008, on a measure on the November ballot. '"It was exhausting, but it was exciting to have a group of people with hugely diverse backgrounds and experience listening carefully to both sides and all respectful to one another," said Lorene Wallick'
Each state has individual requirements to qualify initiatives for the ballot. Generally, all 24 states and the District of Columbia follow steps similar to:
- File a proposed petition with a designated state official
- State review of the proposal and, in several states, a review of the language of the proposal
- Prepare ballot title and summary
- Petition circulation to obtain the required number of signatures
- Petition submitted to state election officials to verify the signatures and qualify the ballot entry
See also
- InitiativeInitiativeIn political science, an initiative is a means by which a petition signed by a certain minimum number of registered voters can force a public vote...
- ReferendumReferendumA referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...
- Direct DemocracyDirect democracyDirect democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...
- "When History Repeats" (1913), by Willard French.
External links
- Portal: Ballot measures at BallotpediaBallotpediaBallotpedia is a wiki-style website billed as "an interactive almanac of state politics". InfoWorld has called it one of the "Top 20 Election Day Web sites and online tools".-Purpose:...
- Citizens in Charge
- NCSL Ballot Measures Database
- NCSL Initiative & Referendum Legislation Database
- The National Initiative for Democracy (NI4D)
- The National Initiative for Democracy