Taking Back The Initiative: Renewing Progressive Democracy

by Kevin Mattson

Since the 1980s, the initiative and referendum have provoked anxiety among American progressives. Though these tools of direct democracy stem from a progressive tradition of reform, they have produced an ironic situation which often favors money -- not the will of citizens. Special interests and big business create and push many initiatives since they have the necessary money to hire professional consultants who collect signatures, conduct direct mail campaigns, and devise and fund advertising strategies.

Studies done in the 1980s showed that in 80% of the cases where initiatives passed, the side which spent the most money won. Peter Schrag tells a typical and more recent story in Paradise Lost: California's Experience, America's Future. In 1996, Wall Street rolled out the big bucks to defeat a proposition that would have, among other things, allowed citizens to sue those who gave bad stock option advice. The cabal who organized this stunt still had enough money left over to defeat a pro-union proposition in the same year.

Just a few months ago, the Supreme Court, in Buckley, Secretary of State of Colorado v. American Constitutional Law Foundation, Inc., struck down an attempt by Colorado citizens to curb business influence on initiatives. Colorado citizens voted to require that those who propose ballot initiatives and gather signatures be state residents -- trying to cut back on the influence of nation-wide businesses who offer high-priced signature gathering and strategizing services. In finding this new initiative unconstitutional, the Supreme Court reasserted its 1978 ruling in First National Bank v. Bellotti. In that decision, the Court ruled that restrictions on the amount of money that corporations used to help pass legislation were unconstitutional. Following the same reasoning behind its more famous Buckley v. Valeo decision (1976), the Court argued in First National Bank v. Bellotti that money was an expressive form of speech and that restrictions on spending in politics violated the First Amendment. In Buckley, Secretary of State of Colorado v. American Constitutional Law Foundation, Inc., the Court ruled that "petition circulation is 'core political speech' for which First Amendment protection is 'at its zenith.'" Here is a central reason why it's so difficult to drive money out of direct democracy.

But progressive-minded democrats should not give up hope in the democratic potential of the initiative and referendum. After all, groups of citizens who lack financial power can still organize and get their voices heard, and sometimes even change laws. For instance, citizens in Maine and Arizona just voted to pass stringent campaign finance reform -- precisely at a time when political legislators have blocked such attempts. Progressive leaders fought to defeat an anti-union initiative -- the infamous "paycheck protection act" -- that was funded by big business in Oregon and California; in the process, they won the confidence of public opinion. It would seem foolish to argue that no progressive reform can be made by the direct voice of citizens.

Besides, the attempts of citizens in Colorado -- no matter how unconstitutional or problematic -- show that voters are repulsed at the influence of money on direct democracy. Therefore, we should ask what can be done to make direct democracy more responsive to citizens rather than big money. How can we make the initiative and referendum more adequately measure up to the hopes of the progressive-minded democrats of yesteryear -- those who wanted them to express popular will? To begin answering these questions, we need to look back on history and understand better just what progressive reformers really wanted when they first called for citizens to make direct decisions on legislative matters.

What Did Progressives Really Want?

It was during the Progressive Era (roughly 1890-1917) that Americans witnessed the widest adoption of the initiative and referendum at the state level. On the heels of the Gilded Age, activists struggled to find ways to drive big business and special interests out of government. Turning legislative decisions over to the people seemed one clear way to do this. Historians often depict Progressive Era reformers as middle class citizens enamored with bureaucratic and centralized means of governance. But when historians examine reformers' trust in the initiative and referendum, these activists come off not as bureaucrats but as idealistic democrats who might have jettisoned the agrarian concerns of the populists but retained their faith in "the people."

Take, for instance, the progressive governor of California, Hiram Johnson, who fought against the Southern Pacific Railroad's control over the state. In sweeping rhetoric, Johnson announced that the initiative and referendum (which became law under his administration in 1911) would ensure the "sovereignty of the people" and a "free republic." Another municipal-level reformer, Charles Zueblin, elaborated on the faith of leaders like Johnson. He explained that citizens should "enjoy the use of the initiative and referendum... in order that they may be educated to understand government and may inform their representatives of the current state of public opinion." Clearly there was something a bit simplistic in these suggestions that the initiative and referendum, in themselves, could generate virtuous-minded debate and democratic sovereignty.

Though simplistic, these were not the only views during that period of time. Other leaders held a more balanced view of the initiative and referendum. For instance, Theodore Roosevelt endorsed these tools of direct democracy but, in the same breath, warned that "the anticipations of ... adherents are exaggerated." Tom Johnson, the Progressive Era mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, understood that the referendum forced leaders to take risks and face up to the court of public opinion, thereby potentially defeating their own progressive ideals. Indeed, Tom Johnson saw his support of municipal ownership of street railcars lose to a referendum he himself put on the ballot. Still, he clung to his belief in the referendum, recognizing that without it, democracy would become hollow. As he explained, "People learn from their mistakes.... The good effects that have come and will come from the referendum will largely outweigh any temporary disadvantage."

More impressive than the democratic leadership style embraced by Roosevelt and Johnson was the thinking of local activists like Mary Parker Follett. Indeed, Follett's reflections on the initiative and referendum are virtually prophetic. She stated boldly at the time of World War I: "Much has been written by advocates of direct government to show that it will destroy the arbitrary power of the [boss-run] party, destroy its relation to big business, etc., but we see little evidence of this. We all know, and we can see every year if we watch the history of referendum votes, that the party organization is quite able to use 'direct government' for its own ends." Follett had been active in what was called the Community Centers movement (which organized citizens into neighborhood centers for political debates), and she believed fervently that unless citizens were provided with forums in which to deliberate and discuss the issues of the day, that business would still have too much power over political decision-making. As Henry Curtis, another community center activist explained, "The last few years have seen a rapid advance through the initiative, referendum, and the recall, but the fundamental unit is still unorganized." To ensure that citizens were organized, Curtis called for "some agora, forum, or neighborhood center" where they could educate one another about pressing matters.

So What Happened and What Can Be Done About It?

Though many states passed the initiative and referendum during the Progressive Era, citizens used these tools of direct democracy sparingly from the 1920s to the 1970s. These political tools were simply not on the political radar screen or taken too seriously. It was not until the 1980s that activists began seeing the initiative and referendum as means to pursue their various agendas (especially following on the heels of California's groundbreaking Proposition 13). By this time, an increasing distrust in government (and the public sector in general) plus a renewed populist rhetoric helped spawn a whole slew of new initiatives.

The populist rhetoric of the Reagan era was just that -- rhetoric. The reality of the initiative and referendum was essentially a combination of big money and professionalized politics. As is already clear, businesses hired professional consulting firms during the 1980s to gather signatures and spread the word through advertisements. Absent from the process of getting an initiative passed was any serious political education or public deliberation. One employee of a signature gathering business explained the low-level of education when he told Peter Schrag that, "You say whatever you need to get a signature." Advertisements in favor of certain initiatives certainly don't encourage debate but confirm the private opinions held by citizens through simplistic slogans and images. Here is the new world of faux populist and astroturf politics, where what at first appears to be the will of the people turns out to be a well-funded charade or business venture. Mary Parker Follett was right: big business can abuse direct democracy just as it can abuse representative democracy.

The optimism of Progressive Era reformers is better off dead. But we shouldn't neglect the more thoughtful spokespeople of that era nor the fact that citizens can use the initiative and referendum intelligently. While recognizing that the initiative will not save democracy entirely and can lead to decisions some of us might not like, we should pay close attention to the thinking of Mary Parker Follett and Henry Curtis, who predicted the sort of abuses that the initiative and referendum have produced today. To be truly effective, they argued, the initiative and referendum needed to be coupled with public deliberation. Alone, the initiative and referendum would not ensure a more democratic polity. An educated and democratic public -- that matures through discussion and deliberation -- is vital to the evaluation of proposed legislation. Many activists during the Progressive Era wanted to see something like a citizen legislature, one that would be a place for open dialogue about public choices.

Today, we need more deliberative democracy to correct the perversions of direct democracy. We should seek ways to couple public deliberation and voting on legislation. Fortunately, this vision is not completely divorced from existing political institutions. For instance, in Oregon, citizens are sent non-partisan voter handbooks that detail proposed legislation. Voters recently decided to continue funding this program against an initiative which would have killed it. More pertinently in this context, a number of activists and organizers over the years have experimented with new methods of engaging regular citizens in deliberative settings. Study circles, citizens' juries, national issues forums, and deliberative polling have all devised different strategies to get citizens to talk through what can be difficult subject matters (from the death penalty to school financing). Grounded in a commitment to a public sphere and democratic talk, these experiments demonstrate that when citizens are provided with the opportunity to debate, listen to other viewpoints, and learn about complex issues, they can consistently make thoughtful judgments and choices. They have provided substance to the arguments made by many political theorists who emphasize the crucial relation between public deliberation and democratic ideals.

Having attended many of these citizen discussions, I have heard only one complaint. Sometimes, citizens feel that discussions in these forums seem weightless. Many citizens want a sense that public talk leads directly to public action. In the case of the initiative and referendum, it clearly can. A choice awaits citizens who are talking about proposed legislation they can vote on. And here is a golden opportunity to renew the progressive and democratic kernel of the initiative and to put forth a concrete and viable proposal for reform. We should encourage state governments to sponsor deliberative sessions organized by nonpartisan groups and televise these sessions close to the time that citizens will vote on upcoming initiatives. Rules should be set out for these forums so they ensure that all viewpoints are heard. For if we turn legislative decisions over to the people, we should also make available places where they can engage in dialogue or at least listen to other citizens engaging in dialogue. No doubt, these proposals come with all sorts of logistical problems. We should be careful about who organizes the forums; how they are moderated; who gets heard. Of course, many will argue that costs prohibit such a proposal (the same complaint is heard about publicly financed campaigns). But if we want to ensure democratic deliberation that enhances citizens' decision-making capacities, we need to do something about it. And that requires thoughtfulness, leadership, and, yes, money.

In addition, this sort of proposal seems the best way to get the influence of big money out of initiatives. It provides a place where viewpoints can be heard -- no matter how much money an organization or individual have. In this way, it has something in common with free air time proposals for debates between candidates (which always accompany campaign finance reform legislative packages that have any teeth). Unless the Supreme Court drastically changes its mind, it will continue to use "free speech" arguments as a means to hamper direct regulation of corporate spending on initiatives (as the recent Colorado decision makes clear). Hence, the more realistic element of this proposal. It might not cut down on spending, but it could cut down on spending's influence over public debate. For in the end, citizens could see and hear something more than just the manipulative and misleading advertisements funded by self-interested parties. They would hear private opinions being challenged in public, deliberative settings. And they would have the opportunity to discuss the interests of those who have funded recent initiatives.

This proposal should be placed in the context of a larger movement to make politics more responsive to the will of the people. Progressive democrats have already done a good job at championing campaign finance reform (and have intelligently dug in their heels at the state level). There have also been calls for creating a National Election Day (which would ensure that people be given the day off from work in order to vote). More traditionally, progressives have supported massive voter registration drives and new techniques to register the traditionally disenfranchised. Unions have strategized about political education initiatives and voter outreach. But on the issue of the initiative and referendum -- which often receive more press and attention than the proposals listed here -- progressive democrats have been strangely silent. In fact, it's been conservative candidates like Jack Kemp and Pat Buchanan who have trumpeted the adoption of a national referendum recently. Progressive democrats, as is so often the case, stand to the side, waiting to protest the next bad round of initiatives.

Instead of merely reacting or being silent, those who believe in progressive reform should take a "mend, don't end" approach towards the initiative and referendum. We must make clear that citizens can and should decide on public matters and should deliberate about the possible consequences (constitutional and otherwise) of their decisions. At the same time, the courts must protect the rights of minorities against majorities (as many scholars point out, the courts have successfully protected minority rights in relation to the initiative and referendum). But in order to make thoughtful decisions, citizens need places where they can deliberate and talk through the complex choices facing them. We must provide opportunities for citizens to deliberate in public, rather than make private decisions based on their previously held opinions. Many will claim that this is not the only reform that is necessary to make the initiative and referendum more democratic. But this proposal does press progressive-minded reformers to refrain from throwing the baby out with the bath water and discarding the democratic potential of the initiative and referendum. By taking back the initiative, we can remind ourselves of a central truth that stems from the progressive tradition of reform: the only cure for democracy is more democracy.

Kevin Mattson is research director at the Walt Whitman Center for the Culture and Politics of Democracy, at Rutgers University, and author of Creating a Democratic Public: The Struggle for Urban Participatory Democracy During the Progressive Era, 1998. This article was initially published in Social Policy.

Contact Kevin Mattson.