Initiatives Across the Country

From education and gun control to same-sex marriage and medical marijuana, 204 ballot measures were put to voters last year in 42 states.

This year, however, the most intense debates surround not the issues that will appear on ballots in November, but rather the effectiveness of the direct democracy process itself.

While the presidential controversy raged in Florida, last November's election also sparked disputes at the state level regarding the legitimacy of citizen ballot initiatives. According to the Washington, D.C.-based Initiative and Referendum Institute, 61 percent and 48 percent of measures placed on the ballot by the people were approved in 1998 and 2000, respectively.

These success rates, which are well above the 100- year average of 4l percent, have alarmed some state officials, who fear that the initiative process has strayed too far afield from its original purpose, both in the number and scope of measures brought to the public for a vote.

As a result, state legislatures across the country are now reconsidering the process by which an initiative reaches voters for consideration. In 16 states, certified initiative petitions with a specified number of signatures can be added to the state ballot. Now officials in several of these states are placing tighter regulations upon who can circulate petitions, who can sign them, and the content of the initiatives themselves.

In Maine, state legislators filed four initiative reform bills before the end of January. In Colorado, the state legislature made concerted, although unsuccessful, efforts to require petition circulators to be Colorado residents and to collect a percentage of signatures from each of the state's congressional districts.

The November 2000 election had yet another affect on the momentum of initiative campaigns across the country, according to M. Dane Waters, president of the Initiative and Referendum Institute. Given the tenuous balance of power in Congress between Democrats and Republicans, Waters predicts that PACs and nonprofit groups that traditionally provide the manpower and monetary backing for initiative campaigns will redirect their focus to congressional races in 2002 in order to help allies regain or retain majority status.

As a result, he forecasts a year of limited ballot initiative activity in 2002, citing as evidence the unusually low number of petitions now circulating in states such as California, which is typically a hotbed of initiative movements.

Deanna White, Deputy Political Director of the Sierra Club's D.C. Chapter, also said that congressional redistricting following the 2000 Census further complicates political strategizing for 2002, so many groups are adopting a "wait-and-see" approach to developing tactics for contributions and campaigns.

Although only a handful of initiative measures will reach the ballot in 2001, those that have overcome the new initiative regulations are highly contested. In Washington state, activist and frequent initiative sponsor Tim Eyman is sponsoring I-747, which would limit property tax increases to 1 percent a year and require voter approval for higher tax hikes.

Over a month before the deadline for signature collection, opponents of I-747 launched a radio advertisement campaign targeting Seattle, Spokane, Yakima, Olympia and other major markets. To date, Eyman and his supporters have raised $300,000 while the "No on I-747" campaign has garnered $100,000, primarily from public-employee unions and firefighters associations.

Similar initiatives proposed by Eyman in previous years have won voter approval at the ballot box only to be ruled unconstitutional by the state courts. Last year, Eyman's I-722, which passed with 56 percent in favor, would have repealed local taxes and fees passed in 1999 and limited property-tax growth to 2 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever was lower. However, the initiative was struck down by a Thurston County Superior Court Judge because it attempted both to reduce taxes and establish a new tax system, thus violating a state law which limits the scope of initiatives to a singular issue.

Proponents of Measure 8 in Colorado are asking voters to approve a $50 million state surplus expenditure for the construction of a monorail test track near Pueblo, a city located approximately 100 miles southeast of Denver along the edge of the state's major growth corridor. The Colorado Alliance for Rapid Transit Solutions perceives a light rail system as a less expensive and more environmentally sound alternative to widening highly congested 1-70; they envision the proposed trial track as a first step toward the establishment of a $3.9 billion monorail system that would run parallel to the existing interstate.

Also, this year in Denver, residents may have the opportunity to vote on a measure that would ban the sale or distribution of genetically engineered foods on school property.

And battle lines have already been drawn for a 2002 initiative showdown in Mississippi, where a proposed Constitutional amendment petition is currently circulating, attracting the attention of both the media and the voting public.

Measure 21 will ask voters "Should the flag adopted in 1884, and used continuously in this State since then, be the Official State Flag?". In April 2001, Mississippi voters rejected a new flag design proposed by the state, choosing instead to preserve the historical Mississippi state flag.

Despite this victory at the polls, however, the flag still has no official standing in the state law books, according to a May 2000 state Supreme Court ruling. Mississippi is the only remaining state to feature the Confederate battle flag on an official banner.

Miller Time?

Since Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords switched from the Republican Party to an Independent label, there have been rumors about other senators who may also make a party conversion. Talk has centered on moderate Republicans Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and John McCain of Arizona, as well as on moderate Democrats Zell Miller of Georgia and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

A Mason-Dixon poll, conducted in early July, found that a majority of Georgia voters would approve of their senator switching from the Democratic to the Republican side of the aisle. The pollsters asked a 631-voter sample about a Miller switch, and 51 percent said they approved while 36 percent registered disapproval. In the survey, 57 percent of men were pro-switch while 45 percent of women were. White voters favored a Miller party change 64 percent to 21 percent while blacks opposed it 81 percent to 12 percent.

Miller, who is a former two-term governor, keynoted the 1992 Democratic National Convention and strongly supported Bill Clinton's presidential candidacy that year. Since his appointment last year as a U.S. Senator, he has voted an independent party line. He was a key player in the passage of President Bush's tax cut plan and has also sided with Republicans on other controversial votes, such as the confirmation of Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Apparently, talk of switching hasn't hurt Miller's standing back home, even though he's always been elected as a Democrat. According to the poll, Miller has a positive job rating of 73 percent.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Campaigns & Elections, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group