California Politics: Some good sense about statewide initiatives

The Los Angeles Times hits the nail on the head with their editorial about how the initiative process in California is damaging democratic government: A Little Too Much Initiative 04/04/04.

It points out that several proposals have qualified or are about to qualify already for the November ballot and many other initiative petitions are being circulated.

... [A]n unusually large number of proposals have substantial backing from reputable groups like the state Chamber of Commerce, statewide organizations of California cities and counties, individual state legislators and activist organizations. They are paying millions to get the signatures needed to make the November ballot. Many will succeed.

This may be good for their causes, but it's bad for California. It would be one thing if these were true grass-roots uprisings by the voters to right evils created in Sacramento. But that day is long past. The current crop of initiatives is an unhealthy flowering of special interests using their money to gain advantage in state government, including the earmarking of billions of dollars in tax funds for narrow uses. Ballot-box budgeting may help their individual causes — and many of them are worthy — but they diminish the ability of the governor and the Legislature to distribute state funds in a balanced way to meet as many needs as possible.

It's a seeming paradox that this kind of "direct democracy" can actually wind up undercutting democracy. But it does. Because the initiative process suffers from the same problem electing representative and statewide officials does. Everybody demands services, good services, more services. Nobody likes to pay taxes for them.

In the legislative process, the legislature and governor have to balance competing demands and come up with something that works. Government by initiative evades that responsibility, because it can mandate spending without also choosing the method of paying for it. More damaging in practice is that it can mandate limitations in taxes without also choosing the services to be cut to pay for the tax cuts.