Reforming the Initiative Process
Files
Description
It is dangerous to tamper with the initiative process. Public interest groups and the press are always ready to discredit attempts to weaken or limit the initiative process through the usual means (increasing signature requirements, limiting the topics that can be included in initiatives, and the like). Such efforts bear the marks of self interest so clearly as to arouse immediate suspicions no matter what their merits. "Of course elected politicians want to limit the effects of the initiative," so the complaint goes, "it is in their interest to do so." The gingerly handling of Proposition 13 by elected officials is testimony to the general fear in Sacramento of fooling around with the initiative process. Following the passage of a particularly troubling initiative, elected officials must simply resign themselves to prayer that (elected) state or federal judges will undertake to limit or overturn the measure. Lacking judicial relief, they can only resort to hand wringing and abstract complaints about the process; direct attempts to modify the people's judgment are generally doomed to failure.
Source Publication
Constitutional Reform in California: Making State Government More Effective and Responsive
Source Editors/Authors
Bruce E. Cain, Roger G. Noll
Publication Date
1995
Recommended Citation
Ferejohn, John A., "Reforming the Initiative Process" (1995). Faculty Chapters. 525.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/525
