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Why do California’s progressives want to gut our direct democratic tools?

April 14, 2023

In “Star Wars,” Princess Leia warned the Galactic Empire’s Death Star commander, “The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.” The Progressive Empire of California, consisting of public employee unions, interest groups and politicians with liberal agendas, wants to prevent end runs to its rule in the Golden State.

Solidly in control of legislative authority, progressives are planning to thwart challenges to its grip on policy making by the business community and others by pushing Assembly Bill 421 to establish restrictive limits on the use of ballot referendums and some initiatives.

In 1911, direct democracy measures were instituted in California to offset the power of business, primarily, the Southern Pacific Railroad, to influence the state Legislature. More than a hundred years later, the script has flipped. The Legislature is now under the influence of a progressive alliance.

In response to legislative actions over the last decade, judged by members of the business community as both bad for business and bad for Californians well-being, business leaders mounted initiative and referendum campaigns to take their cases directly to the voters. Under California law, a referendum qualified for the next ballot freezes the new law until the voters have a say.

Results in recent referendum elections have been mixed. Voters sided with the referendum qualifiers to overturn a law to replace the money bail system but agreed with legislative action to ban single-use plastic bags and prohibit the sale of flavored tobacco products. On the initiative side, voters sided with companies such as Uber and Lyft to veto a measure forcing ride-sharing companies to recognize their independent contractors as employees.

More recently, a law authorizing creation of a council to set minimum wage and work standards for fast-food workers was frozen by a qualified referendum, as was a law that prohibits new oil and gas wells near homes, schools and hospitals. Both issues will be decided by voters in the November 2024 election.

Under the bill, an initiative attempting to cancel legislation that passed in the last two years must collect the more than half-a-million required signatures in 90 days, more quickly than the 180-day time limit usually afforded initiatives — an obvious shot at the success of the Uber and Lyft initiative. Referendums already must meet the 90-day standard. Collecting so many signatures in such a short time is a difficult and an expensive operation. To make it more difficult, the bill wants to put rules and restrictions on the signature gathering process.

AB 421 calls for paid signature gatherers to register with the California secretary of state. A signature gatherer would acquire an identification number that must be added to their petitions, wear an identification badge and take a course in the proper behavior for collecting petition signatures.

Perhaps a greater obstacle for referendum and initiative proponents is that the bill demands a minimum of 10% of the qualifying signatures be collected by unpaid signature gatherers. The procedural nightmares and paperwork delays of complying with these new rules in a short time frame are evident.

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The bill makes it clear the Progressive Empire will take care of its own. It gives a pass for all labor unions by declaring that union members shall be considered voluntary signature gatherers when needed to qualify initiatives and referendums.

The bill’s author, Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, argues that his goal is to bring transparency to the referendum process to stop a “well-powered set of interests that often undermine the collective will of the people of California.”

Isn’t the will of the people best expressed by the people themselves with a ballot?

The true goal of the progressives is to stop voters from disrupting the direction set by the Legislature and their powerful special interest friends. However, the idea of direct democracy is to allow voters to go around the state Legislature to prevent control of total, unchallenged political power — in other words, to slip through the fingers of unfettered rule.

Joel Fox is the former president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and is an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy.

Orange County Register

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Why do California’s progressives want to gut our direct democratic tools?

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