Ballot Initiatives

(originally published at Fox & Hounds Daily)
Who needs Halloween for a good fright when so many California ballot initiatives are posted on the Secretary of State’s website?

(originally published at Fox & Hounds Daily)
It's late September, and Californians across the political spectrum, from the labor left to the good government center to the Tea Party right, are still cooking up ideas for initiatives for the November 2012 ballot.

Here's some good, if unsolicited advice: they should knock it off. Because when it comes to 2012, it's already too late.

(originally published at Fox & Hounds Daily)
Do you have ideas to offer on initiative reform? Great. Now should be your moment.

For more than a century, Oregon has led the country in direct democracy, with the state’s voters confronting more initiatives than other Americans. In recent years, Oregon has conducted a thorough debate over the process, and taken historic steps to build a citizen-based infrastructure for direct democracy.

(originally posted at Fox & Hounds Daily)
You want proof positive that the debate over how to fix pensions for California public workers is stale and dumb?

How about this? Ted Costa has the smartest proposal for pension reform out there.

In the fall of 1911, the new governor, a lawyer from San Francisco, convinced California voters to add the recall, referendum, and initiative to the constitution as a way to stop the political machines. These days, the initiative process is itself a machine, accessible mainly by interests and people with big money. After a century, can California's experiment with direct democracy be saved? And if so, how?

A diverse group of Californians, from across the state, gathered in Torrance in late June for the state’s first statewide deliberative poll.

(Originally published at Fox & Hounds Daily)
Dear Californians, and especially those Californians who play in the initiative process,

You might want to plan a working vacation to Europe soon.

I'm spending the week in Brussels, visiting European Union institutions and talking with people here about a new, EU-wide initiative process that will launch in April 2012.

(originally published at Fox & Hounds Daily)
The good news: reform of the initiative process is finally on the table in California. The bad news: the left and the right are getting reform wrong.

There's a whiff of hypocrisy on both sides.

(originally posted at Fox & Hounds Daily)
This past weekend, more than 300 Californians - chosen at random, as part of an audience shaped to reflect the views and demographics of the state's registered voters - gathered at a Torrance hotel for California's first-ever Deliberative Poll.