Ballot initiative/PROP

new category 8/13

see democracy

see minority rule

merri ok

see haynes, johnson hiram

see local regs

2 22 primary on state legis overturn eg on gerry

oops see propositions

bak 7 23

===

coal company overturn in midwest?

===

5 25 Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed law last week that makes it tougher for citizens to get constitutional amendments on the ballot.

===

---

AN 7 25

Republican lawmakers’ decision to overturn a voter-approved expansion of paid sick leave means benefits Missouri workers accrued in recent months will disappear on Aug. 28.

They also placed a question on the 2026 ballot rolling back abortion rights that voters enshrined in the state constitution in November.

It’s not the first time the GOP-dominated legislature overturned voter-approved laws in recent years. But this time, the backlash could have long-lasting consequences.

In the short term, proponents of the paid sick leave law are eyeing a new initiative petition to reinstate the benefit in the state constitution, while abortion-rights supporters expect to raise millions to fend off a new ban.

But another coalition hopes to go even further.

IFrame Content

Respect Missouri Voters, a bipartisan constellation of organizations, this month submitted 38 versions of a new initiative petition seeking to undermine the legislature’s ability to overturn voter-approved measures.

Most would require 80% of the legislature to agree before a law or constitutional amendment enacted by initiative petition could be revised or repealed. They also would prohibit the legislature from making the initiative and referendum process more difficult.

The group’s PAC reported $200,000 cash on hand on July 1, with another $170,000 in large donations since then. That includes $10,000 from former Republican U.S. Sen. John Danforth.

“This is our one shot,” said Benjamin Singer, CEO of one of the coalition’s members, Show Me Integrity. “If we don’t act now, they’ll succeed in silencing us forever.”

Missouri Gov. Kehoe signs bill repealing paid sick leave

IFrame Content

Republicans have taken notice, with some pondering a preemptive strike to change the initiative petition process before any campaign gets off the ground. But others worry it may already be too late and wonder if the GOP overplayed its hand with its recent moves.

“The legislature doesn’t really seem to understand, they’ve kicked the hornet’s nest,” said James Harris, a veteran Republican consultant in Missouri. “We may be about to cross the rubicon… where the legislature loses a lot of its power.”

The showdown is decades in the making.

After Missourians approved a constitutional amendment to limit taxes in the 1980s, the Democratic-led legislature tried to make changes to the initiative petition process that were criticized at the time by GOP Gov. John Ashcroft as an attempt to silence voters. He ultimately vetoed the bill.

In 1999, Missouri voters rejected a ballot measure that would have allowed concealed carry of firearms. Despite the defeat, the legislature revisited the issue after Republicans took the majority and ultimately passed a concealed carry bill in 2003.

Voters passed a ballot measure in 2010 called the “Puppy Mill Cruelty and Prevention Act” that specified appropriate living conditions for breeding operations with at least 10 female breeding dogs. It also capped the number of animals that a business could use for breeding at 50.

Soon after, lawmakers passed a bill that peeled back key parts of the new law, including the cap on the number of breeding dogs.

The puppy mill vote inspired advocates to forgo changes to state law and instead put their focus on putting policy changes in the state constitution — making it much harder for lawmakers to make changes because it would require another statewide vote.

In subsequent years, voters approved constitutional amendments legalizing marijuana, expanding Medicaid eligibility, creating a nonpartisan redistricting plan and repealing a ban on abortion.

But the GOP supermajority wasn’t ready to quit without a fight.

Lawmakers refused to fund Medicaid expansion until the Missouri Supreme Court said they had no choice. They pushed through a ballot measure of their own, approved by voters, that repealed the nonpartisan redistricting plan.

Next year, voters will weigh in on an amendment passed by the legislature putting the state’s abortion ban back in place. The paid sick leave expansion was not a constitutional amendment, allowing lawmakers to repeal it without a new statewide vote.

“I don’t understand the legislature’s strategy at all,” said Sean Nicholson, a progressive strategist who has worked on numerous initiative petition campaigns in Missouri. “A very pro-Trump electorate spoke very clearly on abortion rights and paid sick leave in November. And now we head into a midterm, and we’ve seen in Missouri and other states that shenanigans from politicians become part of the story. The legislature has given voters plenty of motivation to double down on what they’ve already said.”

Missouri Republicans shut down Senate debate to pass abortion ban, repeal sick leave law

IFrame Content

Republicans, who held legislative super majorities as these progressive ballot measures have been approved by voters, have long complained that out-of-state money from anonymous sources have largely fueled these initiative petition campaigns.

They’ve vowed for years to make it harder to change the constitution through the initiative petition process, but the push always fizzled amidst GOP infighting or other legislative priorities.

The threat of an initiative petition that would weaken the legislature’s hand in the process has reignited calls for Republicans to take action quickly. The Missouri Freedom Caucus, a group of right-wing legislators who regularly quarrel with GOP leadership, is calling on Gov. Mike Kehoe to convene a special legislative session to change the initiative petition process.

“Missouri’s Constitution should not be up for sale to the highest left-wing bidder,” the group said in a statement last week. “Without immediate reform, left-wing activists will continue to use this loophole to force their unpopular agenda on Missouri citizens with a mere 51% of the vote.”

Whether Missourians will get another chance to vote on paid sick leave is still up in the air.

Missouri’s law allowed employees to earn one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked, starting May 1. By the time it’s officially repealed, 17 weeks will have elapsed. That means someone working 40 hours a week could have earned 22 hours of paid sick leave.

If workers don’t use their paid sick leave before Aug. 28, there’s no legal guarantee they can do so afterward.

The sick leave expansion was a “job killer,” said Kara Corches, president and CEO of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry, adding that “one-size-fits-all mandates threaten growth.”

Richard Von Glahn, policy director of Missouri Jobs with Justice, which advocated for the paid sick leave ballot measure, noted 58% of voters approved the proposal. It was also upheld unanimously by the Missouri Supreme Court.

“Now workers may again face the reality of having no paid sick time to take care of their families without losing out on a check,” Von Glahn said shortly after the governor signed the paid sick leave repeal earlier this month. “This move by the Missouri legislature sets a dangerous precedent for democratic processes in our state.”

---

omfg

AN 3 125

As Americans face the reality of President Donald Trump's second term and the mass firings, takeover of federal agencies by billionaire mogul Elon Musk, and looming trade war that have come with it, the direct democracy advocacy group Fairness Project warned of a "major attack" on voters' rights taking place at the state level across the country.

While many in the U.S. have been focused on the actions of the Trump administration, said the group in a Thursday statement, legislators in over 15 states have introduced more than 100 bills to stop citizen-led initiatives from being placed on ballots in upcoming elections—and to stop them from becoming law even if a majority of voters support the measures.

"We're sounding the alarm: Direct democracy is being threatened right under our noses," said Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project. "Ballot measures have been a lifeline to working people in red and purple states, allowing them to make change even when politicians fail to represent their interests. Legislators are trying to systematically take that power away."

The Fairness Project has supported dozens of successful ballot measure campaigns to expand healthcare access, raise minimum wages, and win paid time off policies for roughly 18 million people across the country.

The group was the biggest funder of abortion rights ballot measures in the last election cycle, working to ensure campaigners in Missouri and Arizona collected enough signatures to get questions about expanding abortion rights on ballots. Both ballot initiatives were approved by voters in November.

The Fairness Project was also involved in a 2023 campaign to stop a Republican-backed measure in Ohio that would have required a 60% supermajority to pass any future constitutional amendments.

In six of the states currently pushing attacks on ballot measures—Oklahoma, Arizona, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Idaho—Republicans are making similar attempts to raise the threshold for passing ballot measures from a simple majority to 60%.

If they succeed in passing the proposals, said the Fairness Project, the GOP will be "effectively enacting minority rule."

Lawmakers are also advancing bills that would apply onerous signature requirements to the ballot measure process.

In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' proposed changes to ballot initiative laws include requiring individual voters to complete a petition in person at an election office or by mail in order to express support for a measure, instead of allowing sponsors to pay workers to collect signatures in public.

"They want to kill the process," Angelo Paparella, president of a group that has run several petition drives in the state, toldAxioslast month.

The Arkansas state Senate this month passed several bills regulating how citizen-led initiatives make it onto ballots, including one requiring canvassers to request a photo ID from signers; one requiring potential signers to read the ballot title of a petition or have it read aloud to them; and one requiring canvassers to file an affidavit certifying they complied with state law when collecting signatures.

"This is their playbook: When cowardly politicians know they can't win with voters on the issues, they try to change the rules of the game," Hall said Thursday.

Earlier this week, Mississippi voters once again lost out on the chance to place measures on statewide ballots, which was permitted in the state until the state Supreme Court struck down the ballot initiative process in 2021.

Lawmakers allowed a proposal to partially restore the process to die ahead of a legislative deadline.

"This means voters still have no direct way to propose new state laws, to change state laws, or to change the Constitution," reported Taylor Vance of Mississippi Today.

Hall said the Fairness Project will continue fighting attacks on representative direct democracy nationwide.

"Voters are paying attention to this widespread attack on their constitutional rights, and they're fighting back," said Hall. "Americans deserve leaders who respect our democracy."

---

an 11 24

Despite Trump’s win, school vouchers were again rejected by majorities of voters

update 57% fla need 60, all others passed 1 24

abortion win in like 7 red states lost zero? despite fuckery

an 9 24

All power to the people': Nebraskans to vote on dueling abortion ballot measures

---

===

aha note move goalpost // ohio

8 23 intercept

atlanta Officials Unveil Onerous Verification Requirements for Cop City Referendum

Prem Thakker:{

The city outlined its plans for signature verification after organizers collected 100,000 signatures for a vote on the police training facility.

===

ohio super maj and all const officers? recently passed law no election in aug, then 180 to jam thru prop to derail 700k sigs fall election.

2nd big midwest abortion loss after kansas

no lnx

Ohio’s GOP secretary of state brutally mocked after his amendment goes down in flames

Brad Reedand Raw Story August 09, 2023

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose put a lot of political capital on backing "Issue 1," a ballot initiative that would have raised the threshold for future ballot initiatives to succeed from 50 percent to 60 percent.

Voters in Ohio subsequently rejected the measure by 14 points -- but that didn't stop LaRose from issuing a defiant statement blaming out-of-state spending for the loss.

"We were dramatically outspent by dark money billionaires from California to New York, and the giant 'for sale' sign still hangs on Ohio's constitution," he complained. "Ohioans will see the devastating impact of this vote soon enough."

Many critics were quick to mock LaRose for his statement, including Rachel Petri, the campaign manager for Sen. Sherrod Brown, who wrote on Twitter that "you can't spell 'a loser' without 'LaRose.'"

Atlantic editor Ronald Brownstein, meanwhile, noted that LaRose's defiant statement didn't even mention the role that protecting abortion rights played in the amendment's defeat, which he said reflected Republicans' "uncertainty on how to handle abortion backlash."

Shannon Freshour, a Democrat who is running for Congress in Rep. Jim Jordan's (R-OH) district, celebrated the win and argued LaRose got exactly what he deserved.

"It's best to fight on the side of history, of democracy, of the people," she wrote. "Thankfully Ohio understands that."

Former Democratic Ohio candidate Paul Filippelli, meanwhile, mocked LaRose's suggestion that keeping the old ballot initiative process would put Ohio's state constitution at risk.

"Frank LaRose hates the Ohio Constitution and thinks it has a "for sale" sign on it because it... allows voters to make decisions about how our state is governed," he wrote.

And Tristan Rader, a progressive city councilman from Lakewood, Ohio, gave LaRose a sarcastic "thank you" for blowing his election.

"Thank you for your incompetent leadership on all the worst issues," he wrote. "Keep it up!"

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

GOP tries to keep abortion rights off ballot after major losses: 'Can’t win, so they cheat' ›

'Corrupt': OH Secretary of State admits proposal would avert abortion rights after denying for months ›

Idaho Lawmakers Respond with Restrictive Rules

Voters in Idaho approved a citizen-initiated ballot measure to expand Medicaid in 2018 with 62 percent of the vote. In every legislative session since, the Gem State’s most conservative lawmakers have proposed changes to the process, introducing more than a dozen legislative items since 2019.

Idaho already has one of the most restrictive ballot measure laws—in the more than 100 years since Idahoans gained the right to propose initiatives and referendums, only 37 measures made it to the ballot. Fewer have passed.

Following conservative education reform bills passed in 2011 by the Republican-controlled legislature, signed into law by Republican Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter and supported by Republican state schools Superintendent Tom Luna, teachers unions organized a successful effort to reject those laws via three citizen initiatives in 2012.

In 2013, GOP lawmakers wasted little time enacting legislation governing signature collection. Idaho’s current law reflects those changes, mandating petitioners gather signatures from 6 percent of qualified voters in 18 of the state’s 35 legislative districts.

On the heels of voters approving the Medicaid expansion initiative in 2018, Republican representatives again responded by further regulating the process with restrictions including reducing time allotted for signature gathering, increasing the percentage of signatures needed in each district, and nearly doubling the total number of districts in which signatures would be required. That legislation, passed by the state GOP-led House and Senate, would have all but killed the citizen initiatives in the state were it not for Reclaim Idaho, a grassroots, volunteer-led organization behind the Medicaid expansion ballot measure. The group successfully launched a bipartisan campaign calling on Gov. Brad Little, a Republican, to veto the bill.

Professing his support for the restrictive reforms, Little “reluctantly vetoed” the legislation, citing potential legal action were he to approve it while issuing a transphobic statement warning of “the liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.”

This year, Idaho Senator Steve Vick, a Republican who has tweeted or retweeted election conspiracy theories, Covid-19 disinformation, and an invitation to supporters to “join me and 1,000,000 others” on the social media app Parler, a favorite of the GOP’s far-right, proposed new regulations for the state’s citizen initiative process. The State Affairs committee last week recommended passage, despite an outpouring of public testimony mostly against the restrictions.

“Let’s be clear: This bill is an attempt to make future grassroots initiatives virtually impossible,” Luke Mayville, co-founder of Reclaim Idaho, wrote in an op-ed published in newspapers around the state. Anticipating legislative approval of the measure despite public opposition, as was the case with the 2019 bill, Reclaim Idaho has once again launched a public awareness campaign urging Gov. Little to veto the bill.

Senator Vick’s proposal would amend the signature requirement from 6 percent of the qualified electors in 18 of the state’s 35 districts to 6 percent of electors in all 35 districts without increasing the timeframe for signature gathering. Additionally, SB 1110 has an emergency clause that would make the changes effective immediately, meaning it would directly impact initiative efforts for any upcoming elections.

“The bill is an unconstitutional restriction on the right of the people to control their government,” former Idaho attorney general and former state Supreme Court Justice Jim Jones, a Republican, wrote, following the committee’s approval of the bill. “After all, Article One of the Idaho Constitution solemnly proclaims that, ‘all political power is inherent in the people.’ It states that the people, ‘have the right to alter, reform or abolish’ the State government ‘whenever they may deem it necessary.’ How can the people possibly exercise that awesome power if they have to go through a power-hungry Legislature in every instance?”

Proponents of the measure—including the Idaho Farm Bureau, which advocated for the restrictive 2019 bill and against Medicaid expansion in 2018—argue rural voters are disenfranchised by the current process. But as Mayville pointed out, “Idaho’s Medicaid expansion initiative received signatures from all 44 counties. In fact, the entire campaign began in rural Bonner County and was bolstered by passionate teams of volunteers in rural communities across the state. The initiative received a majority of the vote in 35 of Idaho’s 44 counties, including dozens of rural counties.”

Mayville calls the current movement to restrict the initiative process a “red state assault” on direct democracy. Noting that conservative groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)—to which Senator Vick and at least 14 other acting Idaho state lawmakers have ties—have long pushed for more restrictive initiative laws, Mayville said what unites lawmakers against direct democracy is a variety of issues, not necessarily a party ideology.

“When you look at it nationally… there are all kinds of motives,” Mayville told Sludge. Whether it be citizens organizing initiatives and voting to expand Medicaid, legalize cannabis, or enact a $15 minimum wage, “there is something of a unifying trend. When you look at ALEC and you look at all these organizations, the ballot initiative is scary for them because it threatens to undermine their legitimacy.”

Editorial boards from at least two of the state’s major news outlets have come out in opposition of Senator Vick’s bill, acknowledging the anticipatory nature of the proposed restrictions.

“At least part of the motivation behind this bill is the fear that Idahoans might vote to legalize medical or recreational marijuana by ballot initiative,” the Post Register’s editorial board wrote.

Idaho Senator C. Scott Grow, a Republican, introduced a resolution in January that would effectively preempt both the state legislature and citizens from legalizing via ballot measure adult-use recreational cannabis or any other drug not already legal in the state and approved by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA). Not surprisingly, Senator Grow introduced the 2019 bill that would have drastically increased barriers to the initiative process in the Gem State. Senator Grow’s anti-drug measure passed the Republican-controlled Senate this month. Pending House approval, the resolution will appear before voters in 2022 per Idaho law.

“It is understandable that lawmakers don’t want the legalization of marijuana,” the Post Register’s editorial board wrote. “But it is intolerable for them to declare that the people should have no choice in the matter.

“And thinking these restrictions would prevent legalization from landing on the ballot someday is foolish. Marijuana is now a large, profitable national industry,” the board continued. “The marijuana industry can afford to pay an army of signature gatherers to spread out over Clark County and gather the required 6 percent. These restrictions will primarily target grassroots, poorly funded campaigns—the exact sort of campaigns which the ballot initiative is meant to support.”

Citizens, Advocates Fight to Protect Direct Democracy

“This really comes from a place where the ballot measure is a tool for our liberation,” Rivera Fowler said.“Initiatives are the people’s tool to create immediate and impactful change in their own lives, especially when their own leaders are refusing to act on these policies.”

In recent history, ballot measures were used to counter civil rights laws, Rivera Fowler said.

“If you look back at the history of ballot measures, before 2012, there was about a 20-year period of conservative ballot measures and attacks to the progressive community, attacks to labor unions and worker rights, attacks to civil rights, LGBTQ rights, marriage equality, gender equality, racial equality, and taxes were all under attack,” she said.

But around 2010, progressive advocates began using the citizen initiative process to enact popular legislation lawmakers resisted.

“What we really like is that we’re seeing voters across all party lines and demographics voting for good policy at the ballot,” Rivera Fowler continued. “It’s not a partisan issue. It’s about making their lives better.”

Voters in Missouri approved Medicaid expansion in 2020, making the state the sixth to greenlight closing the “Medicaid gap” via citizen initiative. Between 1996 and 2020, state voters approved 25 of 27 ballot measures to increase minimum wage. As of 2020, 19 of the 35 states and Washington, D.C. that have legalized medical marijuana did so via ballot initiative.

“It’s clear to us that voters support good policy,” Rivera Fowler said. “We need to continue to protect ballot integrity, protect the ballot measure process by blocking bad legislation, and work to continue to run strong, bold progressive policy through ballot measures.”

Toward that end, Reclaim Idaho intends to pursue an education funding initiative similar to the one halted by the United States Supreme Court at the request of Gov. Little in 2020. Representatives in some states without initiative laws are looking to enact them as well. State legislatures in Hawaii, Kansas, New Jersey, South Carolina, Rhode Island and New York are considering granting their citizens the right to place measures before voters.

“It goes directly against democracy to diminish our power,” Rivera Fowler said. “And lawmakers are only showing their own colors by attempting to make the process harder to access. They’re really doing themselves a disservice because voters will respond.”

Idaho Senator Steve Vick did not respond to a request for comment regarding his proposed legislation.

===

see local regs

Noble Energy Gives Millions To Fund Astroturf Campaigns

Noble Energy Funnelled Over $7 Million Into An Astroturf Group To Oppose An Initiated Measure That Would Regulate Fracking On Public Lands In Colorado. “In a last-ditch attempt to defeat one of the mostfar-reaching environmental measures on the 2018 ballot, a fossil-fuel giant is blanketing Colorado television with election-focused political ads that it now claims are outside the purview of all state campaign-finance laws. The maneuver — which pioneers a novel way for corporations to circumvent disclosure statutes and inject money directly into elections — has been blessed by the office ofColorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams, who has led a Republican political group bankrolled by the same fossil-fuel corporation that is airing the ads. At issue is Proposition 112, a landmark measure that would force fossil-fuel companies to set their drilling and fracking operations further away from hospitals, schools, child-care centers and residential neighborhoods. Natural gas colossus Noble Energy and its subsidiaries have been among the most prominent opponents of the initiative, disclosing $7.1 million in contributions to Protect Colorado,:{ the issue committee opposing the initiative.” }::{Westword}::{, }:[:{10/18/18}::{]}:

===

https://www.desmog.com/2022/09/14/house-committee-pr-climate-disinformation/

On September 14, a congressional committee probed the history that PR firms have played in creating and spreading climate disinformation in order to block climate policy and promote fossil fuel interests.

The hearing, held by the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee Oversight & Investigations, invited several firms, including Singer Associates, Story Partners, and Pac/West Communications. None of them showed up.

Instead, the hearing heard from several witnesses, including experts in the PR industry. One of them was Christine Arena, a former VP at Edelman who now researches and exposes greenwashing and industry obfuscation. Arena laid out three overarching campaign strategies that PR firms use on behalf of their fossil fuel clients, citing a study from Brown University researchers Robert Brulle and Carter Werthman. Those strategies are corporate image promotion, third-party mobilization (astroturf groups), and delegitimization of the opposition.

“The U.S. oil and gas sector has always pushed for policies that allow for new fossil fuel expansion, and against policies that would reduce demand,” Arena said in a prepared testimony. “But what has changed recently is the intensity of the industry’s pursuits, and the vast resources it deploys through public relations and lobbying efforts meant to crush potential regulatory obstacles in its path.”

The oil industry and its hired PR hands continue to deploy these strategies. A recent example Arena cited was the oil industry’s effort to opportunistically seize on Russia’s war in Ukraine to promote long-standing policy wishes, while misleading the public by blaming climate policy for causing higher energy prices.

These tactics are especially aggressive at the state and local level, where “brute financial force” is used to kill off climate initiatives, Arena added.

That power imbalance was on vivid display in Colorado in 2018 when grassroots activists succeeded in getting a ballot initiative put to voters that would have imposed greater setback distances on fracking operations, limiting how close to homes and schools new oil and gas wells could be drilled. A year earlier, two deadly oil and gas infrastructure explosions had rocked Firestone, Colorado.

The industry poured money into that election, outspending community and environmental groups by a factor of more than thirty to one. Noble Energy,a large fracking company (now owned by Chevron), hired DC-based PR firm Story Partners, to help defeat the measure. Story Partners created two astroturf campaigns, based on the firm’s research that showed that support for setback distances declined when voters heard about the “devastating consequences” that it would have on the state’s economy. The campaign ran ads to promote “clean” natural gas, warn of damage to Colorado’s economy, and positioned Noble Energy as a responsible partner. Story Partners still displays its campaign to defeat the ballot initiative on its website as a successful “case study” of how it protected its client’s assets.

The House committee also heard from Anne Lee Foster, who held an unpaid position in 2018 for Colorado Rising, a grassroots group supporting the ballot measure to establish drilling setback distances. She spoke about the multiple instances in which people would harass her and her colleagues as they tried to gather signatures.

Around that time, Colorado Public Radio reported that an internal Anadarko Petroleum document, leaked to Colorado Rising, asked employees to report the locations of signature gatherers via a phone texting system. Once the location was identified, counter-protesters appeared at a moment’s notice, shouting and harassing the signature gatherers and passersby who considered signing on to the ballot initiative effort.

According to a report produced by the House committee, oil companies including Anadarko Petroleum, Noble Energy, and Chevron, had set up two front groups, “Protecting Colorado’s Environment, Economy and Energy Independence” (Protect Colorado), and “Coloradans for Responsible Energy Development” (CRED). Those two groups then funneled most of their proceeds to an Oregon-based PR firm called PAC/West. The two front groups offered a “buffer” between the oil drillers and the PR campaign, the committee report said.

Although it was later deleted from its website, PAC/West described how it was paid by Anadarko Petroleum and Noble Energy to “lead a statewide education campaign” to defeat the ballot measure. Ultimately, the ballot measure was narrowly defeated at the polls in 2018.

“I personally suffered from what I feel is stalking or harassment in a number of other circumstances throughout this campaign,” Anne Lee Foster told the committee on Wednesday in her prepared testimony.

That was one small example of a web of influence between a handful of PR firms and the oil and gas industry. “Let me be clear: There is nothing standard or ethical about these practices. They are deceptive communications practices that mislead our citizenry and undermine our democracy,” Arena said.

The work that PR firms do goes far beyond simply promoting the image of their clients, according to Melissa Aronczyk, an associate professor at Rutgers University’s School of Communications & Information, another witness at the congressional hearing.

“Public relations firms often present themselves and their work in terms of facilitating or amplifying ideas or information. In fact, public relations is not only communicating ideas and information but coming up with those ideas and creating that information,” Aronczyk said in her testimony. PR firms provide long-term strategic planning, set up front groups, manufacture the illusion of support, and monitor and target opponents. She said the work goes back many decades.

PR firms also operate a broad network of influence out of public view, sharing information among multiple clients and trade groups, which allows companies to “minimize the reputational and financial risk of speaking out against climate action,” Aronczyk said.

“Because this coordinated infrastructure of anti-environmental action is operating behind the scenes, members of the public and lawmakers have no way of knowing if the campaigns operating on behalf of fossil fuels are real or manufactured,” she added.

But the growing pressure on the PR industry is having an effect. Clean Creatives, a climate campaign targeting the advertising industry, says that nearly 400 PR firms have signed a pledge to not work with coal, oil, and gas companies.

“We’re seeing the beginning of a transformation of the PR and Advertising industry when it comes to climate,” Duncan Meisel, executive director of the Clean Creatives campaign, said in a statement. “Oil and gas companies used to be seen as prestige clients, now agencies are embarrassed to admit that they work for them. But this dirty work is still going on in the shadows, making the spotlight of this House hearing and investigation all the more important. The future of creativity is clean and it’s time for agencies to step into the light.”

One PR firm was not at Wednesday’s hearing: FTI Consulting. The House committee is investigating FTI, which has refused to turn over documents requested by the congressional investigators.

“We initiated the subpoena process for FTI Consulting, which has one of the worst reputations in the business. The negotiations are ongoing. The trajectory is sadly not good,” Rep. Katie Porter said in her closing comments on Wednesday. “What are they trying to hide? Is it their creation of fake grassroots groups for their clients to hide behind? Was it the creation of fake social media profiles to track plans of activist groups? Or is there something worse? The harder FTI Consulting fights, the more it appears that they have a lot to lose by having their tactics exposed through oversight.”

She added: “We are just getting started.”

===

intercept

no lnx

tHE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY SPENT $100 MILLION TO KILL GREEN BALLOT MEASURES IN THREE STATES — AND WON

One clear takeaway from the ballot initiatives in Arizona, Colorado, and Washington state is that fossil fuel money can buy elections.

Kate Aronoff

November 7 2018,

PATRICIA NELSON WAS eager for a fresh start when she moved her family from Louisiana back home to Weld County, Colorado, in 2016. Soon after, Nelson’s friend encouraged her to come out to a meeting where Lisa McKenzie, an environmental chemist and epidemiologist at the Colorado School of Public Health, was presenting her research on the health impacts of oil and natural gas drilling.

Weld County has one of the highest concentrations of oil and gas wells in the country — 23,000 within county limits. Its air quality carries an “F” rating from the American Lung Association, with infant mortality rates twice as high as those in surrounding counties. With around 50,000 active wells overall, Colorado just surpassed California to become America’s third-largest oil and gas producer after Texas and North Dakota.

“It was a crash course in fracking,” Nelson told me by phone. Colorado law, she learned, states that drilling operations have to be 1,000 feet away from school buildings, but that ordinance — known as a setback — doesn’t include surrounding school properties, like playgrounds or soccer fields. There, as McKenzie would explain, kids playing and running around breathe harder and heavier, increasing the amount of poisoned air that enters their lungs and bloodstream.

All of this hit too close to home: As she also learned, oil companies had just been approved to open 24 new drill sites near her then-4-year-old son Diego’s school, the kindergarten through third grade campus of Bella Romero Academy; the drilling would take place just behind the fourth through eighth grade campus, where her niece and nephew were students. The decision to drill near Bella Romero at all — where 87 percent of attendees are students of color, and 90 percent fall below the poverty line — was made after parents at an overwhelmingly white school refused to have the same rigs in their kids’ backyards.

Shocked by what she discovered, Nelson joined a coalition that would later become known as Colorado Rising and traveled around the state, telling people about the stakes at her son’s school. Colorado Rising’s work included a push for Proposition 112, a ballot measure to mandate a 2,500-foot setback zone between drill sites and homes, schools, and other vulnerable areas. That measure was defeated 57 to 43 on Tuesday night, in large part thanks to a full-fledged freakout by the fossil fuel industry, which, with $40 million, outspent Prop 112 proponents by at least 40 to 1.

“I guess the oil and gas industry is just another example of money buying elections.”

“This is much farther than we’ve gotten before, and we’re no longer going to accept this industry bullying us,” Nelson told me last night, celebrating the fact that Prop 112 even made it on the ballot. “We had a pretty good shot, but they definitely had way more resources than we did. I guess the oil and gas industry is just another example of money buying elections.”

Environmental initiatives on the ballot elsewhere in the country, vehemently opposed by industry groups, also flopped. A ballot initiative in Washington state to levy a $15 per ton carbon fee on polluters and invest the revenue in job creation, green infrastructure, and more was defeated 56 to 44 thanks to over $30 million from the oil and gas industry.

In Arizona, electric utilities spent $31 million against Prop 127, which would have upped the state’s renewable portfolio standard, requiring the power sector to generate at least half its power from renewables by 2030. The proposition was largely bankrolled by liberal donor Tom Steyer via NextGen America, which poured $24 million in support, but it failed resoundingly, garnering just 30 percent of the vote....[more]

tUESDAY WASN’T AN unambiguous win for the industry, though — even in Colorado. Amendment 74 — polling high before the election and far better than Prop 112 — would have allowed property owners to sue local governments and the state for any infringement on their profits, but fell short of the 55 percent of votes needed to be grafted into Colorado’s constitution. The campaign for Amendment 74 was small compared to the fight against Prop 112 but still sizable, with $11.2 million raised by backers — about $10 million from oil and gas — and $6.3 by opponents under the banner Save Our Neighborhoods.

Still, one clear takeaway from the midterms ballot initiatives is that fossil fuel money can buy elections.Apparently, $100 million can buy four of them. “They’re putting up big numbers,” said Edgar Franks, a Bellingham-based labor organizer who helped draft and campaign for I-1631 with the environmental justice group Front and Centered. “You can tell that where this is actually a threat to the way that they do business, because they know it’s going to work.”

While Washington Gov. Jay Inslee backed I-1631 — having failed to get his own carbon fee through the legislature this spring — his Colorado counterpart was on the opposite side of the fight in his state. Prop 112 failed amid opposition not just from the oil and gas industry, but also from now-outgoing Colorado governor and former oil industry geologist John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, along with governor-elect Jared Polis and his Republican opponent. The Colorado Democratic Party, however, supported it. Polis’s opposition was ironic, given that he himself had spearheaded the push for a 2,000-foot setback rule several years ago before eventually withdrawing it from the ballot.

Despite Polis’s opposition to Prop 112, Colorado Rising is cautiously optimistic about working with his administration, a position bolstered by the fact that Democrats managed to flip the state legislature last night. “Polis clearly understands that fracking is dangerous near communities,” said Micah Parkin, a board member of Colorado Rising and executive director of 350 Colorado. “He may not agree with us on 2,500 feet, but he clearly gets that it doesn’t belong near our children’s schools and homes and water sources.”

The bar for improving Hickenlooper’s record on extraction has been set pretty low. The outgoing governor had threatened to call a special lame duck session of the state legislature in the event of Prop 112’s passage.“ It’s incredibly undemocratic,” said Parkin in advance of the vote. “The very idea that he would think it’s OK to turn around and ignore the will of the people, when thousands of his own constituents have worked so hard.”

The statement wasn’t unprecedented for Hickenlooper. In 2013, he openly threatened to sue any city that banned fracking within its borders and in fact, did sue Longmont and Fort Collins after they implemented restrictions on fracking. The state’s suit also undermined the legal standing of three other bans and moratoria. “Topics like these,” Nelson told me, “are the ones that enable the true colors of our representatives to come out. It just shows that he’s never been on the side of the people, he’s been on the side of industry.”

Predictably, then, the fight over Proposition 112 got ugly. Oil and gas interests painted the measure as an attempt to ban fracking in the state, though it in fact only added on to policies that already exist, which require a 500-foot setback from homes and 1,000-foot setback from schools.In collecting signatures this summer to get Prop 112 on the ballot, canvassers were followed and surrounded by paid protesters. “It would be between two and four of us who would plan out where to collect signatures,” Nelson said. “We would get there and 15 or 20 minutes later, these kids would show up with their signs. Unless they were following us, how would they know where we were?” She suspects at least some of them were University of Colorado students and had awkward encounters with them around town after encountering them while petitioning.

A political consultant hired by Colorado Rising this summer to help collect signatures also walked out of the state with 15,000 signatures, which were only retrieved after the group filed a lawsuit to have them returned.

The industry also publicly — and knowingly — overstated the impact of the measure. As Denver’s 9News found from a leaked report that industry groups had seen a report from the consultancy RS Energy stating that their losses would be far less than what they projected out over airwaves. The industry-friendly state regulator, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, had instead claimed in July that some 80 percent of non-federal land in Colorado — the only land covered by Prop 112 — would be off-limits to drilling. Yet the RS Energy report shows that companies would maintain access to 61 percent of the state’s oil and gas reserves. That’s partially because although companies would be barred from drilling within setback zones, horizontal drilling techniques — where the well mouth is within permitted drilling areas — could still access minerals under off-limits areas from up to a mile away.

“People have tried so many different ways to protect themselves over the years, and this was the last recourse.”

While it would have been the country’s most ambitious regulatory check on the fossil fuel industry, Parkin and Nelson both emphasized that Prop 112 was a kind of method of last resort. Those looking to place more regulations on the oil and gas industry had tried to get bills passed through the legislature and appealed to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission — all to no avail. “People have tried so many different ways to protect themselves over the years,” Parkin said, “and this was the last recourse.”

A supporter of Initiative 1631 holds a sign referencing the Nisqually Indian Tribe, Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2018, during a rally supporting I-1631, a November ballot measure in Washington state that would charge a fee on carbon emissions from fossil fuels. The rally was organized by tribal and environmental leaders, and took place near the offices of the Western States Petroleum Associationin Lacey, Wash. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

IT WAS A similar story in Washington, where the legislature failed earlier this year to get a somewhat similar carbon tax measure through the legislature, falling short by “one or two votes.” A 2016 ballot initiative had failed to — by a margin of 20 percent — after drawing fire from the same groups now pushing for I-1631 over its lack of both investment in green projects and attention to the demands of climate and environmental justice groups. The campaign this time around was comparatively massive, drawing in a huge coalition of labor groups, indigenous communities, climate nonprofits, and more.

The biggest limiting factor to commonsense climate policies like Prop 112 and I-1631 isn’t either old school climate denial or bad design, but the sheer force of the fossil fuel industry’s seemingly endless capacity to pour money into elections. While theoretically supportive of carbon pricing and some vague sense of climate action, fossil fuel interests this cycle showed their cards: If it poses a threat to their profits, it’s going down. Fightbacks like the one posed to Amendment 74 are possible. Yet with Democrats taking the House — with several climate hawks now in their ranks — any push on climate there will have to reckon with the colossal funding might of the industry, and the kind of opposition Prop 112 faced from members of their own party sponsored by them.

On the heels of the latest IPCC report — which makes the need to decarbonize every sector of the economy painfully clear — there isn’t really an alternative to going toe to toe with those companies, no matter how much of a David and Goliath fight it might be.

“This isn’t over for me, personally. We have had a warning,” Nelson said, referencing that report, “that we either end our dependence on fossil fuels or things are going to get extremely rough for mankind. For me, it shows that it’s just about greed and money for this industry.”

===

https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/alarm-grows-as-florida-gop-advances-plan-to-gut-ballot-initiative-process/

citizen initiative process that gave Floridians the power to raise theminimum wage and restore voting rights is under grave threat after the state's House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday advanced a Republican proposal to dramatically limit the scope of future ballot measures.

Led by state Rep. Mike Beltran (R-57), House Joint Resolution 1127 would alter Florida's constitution to limit citizen initiatives to "matters relating to procedural subjects or to structure" of the government—a restriction that likely would have blocked $15 minimum wage, voting rights, medical marijuana, and conservation amendments.

"Lawmakers should respect the will of the people and Floridians' right to participate in our democracy."

Having passed out of the GOP-controlled judiciary panel, the proposal is soon expected to receive a vote in the full state House of Representatives. If the Florida Legislature passes Beltran's resolution, voters will have to approve the amendment for it to be added to the state constitution.

Final approval of the resolution would effectively spell the death of the state's citizen initiative process, theACLU of Florida warnedin a statement Tuesday evening.

"These proposed changes to the citizen initiative process are not about fixing problems—they are about interfering with the will of Floridians," said Kara Gross, the group's legislative director and senior policy counsel. "Through ballot initiatives, citizens have been able to improve the lives and well-being of Floridians."

Gross characterized the Florida GOP's attack on the citizen initiative process as part of a broader trend of "politicians trying to rewrite the rules because they do not like it when voters use their power is a trend that must come to an end."

"Florida lawmakers should respect the will of the people and Floridians' right to participate in our democracy through the citizen initiative process," Gross added. "They should vote no on these proposals and end the crusade of sabotaging the right of the people to be heard."

House Joint Resolution 1127 is hardly the Florida GOP's first attempt to gut the citizen initiative process, which empowered voters to enact broadly popular policies that would've gone nowhere in the GOP-dominated state Legislature.

In 2020, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill containing a number of new ballot initiative restrictions, including an increase of the signature requirement. Last year, DeSantis signed a measure limiting donations to citizen initiative campaigns—a limit that was later blocked by a federal judge.

Aliki Moncrief, executive director of Florida Conservation voters, told a local CBS affiliate on Tuesday that the state GOP's efforts are "basically about limiting the power of people to raise important public policies and important public issues that they don't feel the Legislature is considering."

"So, it's horrible in a word," Moncrief added. "If the people really wanted this done, they would have done it."

===

aha? gotta rolls out astro to ~? or support depending? eg rentas

bs see alford, usual suspect on props?

for immediate release: Jul. 15, 2020

Contact: Stacey Wells, (866) 450-2648

press@yeson22.com

In Case You Missed It: National Black Chamber of Commerce Endorses Prop 22– Save App-Based Jobs & Services Act

“(Proposition 22) would maintain access to flexible work opportunities for low income individuals by protecting their right to work as independent contractors”

SACRAMENTO – The National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) has endorsed Proposition 22 on California’s November 3 ballot. NBCC is dedicated to economically empowering and sustaining African American communities.

NBCC joins a broad coalition of more than 75,000 California drivers plus social justice advocates, business and community leaders, and public safety organizations in support of Prop 22. This includes the California-Hawaii State Conference of the NAACP, the California National Action Network and the California Urban Partnership.

In their joint letter dated July 14, co-founders Harry Alford, President and CEO, and Kay DeBow, Executive Vice President, write:

“There is more than just convenience when it comes to rideshare. Rideshare operators are true entrepreneurs.”

“We are being threatened with Assembly Bill 5 (AB5). This threatens to take away the right of Californians to work as independent contractors with flexible schedules with app-based platforms and would force them to become employees with flat wages and set schedules. An employee model would also greatly limit the availability of these services, resulting in lost work opportunities and reduced access to rideshare and delivery services that many minority communities have grown to rely on.

“The solution would be Proposition 22. It would maintain access to flexible work opportunities for low income individuals by protecting their right to work as independent contractors with flexible schedules with app-based rideshare and delivery platforms.”

“By promoting worker flexibility, this ballot measure will protect the availability of rideshare and food and package delivery services that millions of Californians rely on every day.”

“Entrepreneurship is the key to wealth and the above is a shining example of how it can work in today’s economy.”

People of color and disadvantaged communities have been disproportionately ravaged by the double blow of the coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic meltdown. App-based driving has provided opportunities for all Californians, and particularly low-income and minority Californians, to work and earn income quickly and easily. It has been especially important during these troubling times when millions have been furloughed or lost their jobs.

Furthermore, app-based driving provides opportunities to work for thousands of individuals who have trouble finding traditional employment, especially now.

Prop 22 will protect access to this very important work and provide new wage and benefit guarantees.

A study by the Berkeley Research Group confirms an employment model would further eliminate up to 900,000 app-based jobs, a reduction of between 80-90 percent of drivers currently driving today. These job losses will come at the worst possible time when California is facing high unemployment and when app-based work opportunities will provide a lifeline for people to earn income. In addition, by a 4:1 margin app-based drivers want to remain independent contractors, despite efforts by politicians to force them to become employees.

Working with app-based rideshare and delivery platforms, with their high flexibility and low barrier to entry, has proven to be a key form of work for many lower-income families needing access to income during this current pandemic.

===

1220 merc

p.A6

Political influence

End campaign spending by foreign-influenced U.S. firms

By Michael Sozan

Although the aftermath of the presidential election has dominated headlines since Election Day, California saw a development that strikes at the heart of its own self-governance. Foreign-influenced U.S. corporations spent tens of millions of dollars to help pass Proposition 22, invalidating a California law and allowing the companies to classify their workers as contractors instead of employees.

One of these corporations - Uber - is partially owned and controlled by the government of Saudi Arabia. Another corporation - Lyft - is partially owned by a Chinese conglomerate. This means that Saudi Arabian and Chinese investors played a role - at least indirectly - in determining the fate of important California policy. The time has come for state and federal leaders to pass common-sense laws to stop foreign influence in our elections via American corporations.

Ten years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its disastrous ruling in Citizens United, giving corporations the right to unlimited political spending. Since then, independent groups unrelated to political parties have poured more than $7 billion into federal elections, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. This includes secret "dark money" that cannot be traced to its source and is often routed through so-called nonprofit organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or the NRA, which get large contributions from corporations. More than $750 million of dark money was spent in the 2020 election alone.

Foreign-influenced U.S. companies allow a pathway for foreign entities to achieve, either directly or indirectly, what they are barred from doing as governments or individuals: spend money in U.S. elections.

Setting their sights on California in 2020, Uber and Lyft joined forces with DoorDash, Instacart, Uber-owned Postmates and others to devote a staggering $203 million to support Prop. 22. This spending spree made Prop. 22 the most expensive ballot measure in California's history.

This is part of a larger trend that Californians have witnessed. First, the rise of super PACs and a deluge of corporate and secret political spending, which have made politicians less accountable to everyday voters. Second, a political system further warped by foreign interference in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, as well as President Donald Trump's unconstitutional solicitation of foreign assistance for his failed reelection.

Foreign investment in our economy is not always bad. In fact, approximately 35% of all U.S. stock is now owned by foreigners. Yet challenges arise because foreign investors' interests can diverge from Americans' interests.

Perhaps it's not surprising that ExxonMobil's CEO once remarked, "I'm not a U.S. company and I don't make decisions based on what's good for the U.S." If that is the case, ExxonMobil and foreign-influenced companies like it should not be permitted to spend political dollars to sway U.S. elections.

The good news is that a popular solution exists that is gaining momentum: a ban on election-related spending by foreigninfluenced U.S. corporations. For example, if a single foreign entity (government, company or person) owns more than 1% of a U.S. company, that company would be prohibited from spending money in elections. Often, investors who own at least 1% of a major corporation are among the largest shareholders, with at least tens of millions of dollars of stock. The prohibition would also apply if a group of foreign entities owns at least 5% of a U.S. company. Most of America's largest publicly traded corporations exceed the 5% threshold, although many smaller companies do not.

California should follow the lead of federal, state and local lawmakers to enact foreign ownership thresholds. Reps. Ja- mie Raskin, D-Md., and Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., filed federal legislation that would accomplish this.

Similar legislation is pending in several states, such as New York and Maryland.

And a commissioner on the Federal Election Commission, Ellen L. Weintraub, has led a sustained quest to update regulations to include this policy solution.

Californians - especially those in marginalized communities - know that their preferred candidates or policies cannot be accurately reflected when elections are heavily influenced by runaway corporate spending and foreign investors to whom CEOs owe a fiduciary duty.

In order to help strengthen our democracy and promote economic patriotism, it is time to prohibit political spending by foreign-influenced U.S. corporations. Michael Sozan is a senior fellow for the Center for American Progress.

===

essence of DEMOCRACY?

evil if co-opted, in CA rarely pass w/o hired co?/signature collection?

amazing how many sunshine states have citizen initIatives to get green solar power quashed by corps, that run crypto initiative to confuse/defeat them

rolls back new deal? (which // left out blk brn workers

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/12/8/prop_22_uber_lyft_gig_workers

transcript coming, she says PR firm foia'd her?!

ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft scored a major victory with the passage of Proposition 22 in California, and worker rights advocates fear they will push similar measures in other states. Prop 22 will exempt companies in the so-called gig economy from having to classify their workers in the state as employees rather than as independent contractors. Uber, Lyft and other companies that rely on gig workers spent more than $200 million to promote Prop 22, and a survey of California voters who voted “yes” on the measure showed 40% thought they were supporting gig workers’ ability to earn a living wage, even though critics say the measure will do the opposite. “The law will now exempt drivers like me from basic wage and labor protections afforded to most workers in the state in the middle of a pandemic and recession,” says Cherri Murphy, a Lyft driver and organizer with Gig Workers Rising. We also speak with Veena Dubal, professor of law at the University of California, Hastings, who says measures like Prop 22 pose “extreme danger” to American workers. “If this spreads past California, we are headed for an even worse situation of inequality than we are already experiencing,” Dubal says.

guk ref

https://yyy.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/12/uber-prop-22-law-drivers-ab5-gig-workers

uber bought itself a law. Here's why that's dangerous for struggling drivers like me

Cherri Murphy

The company, along with Lyft and DoorDash, spent more than $200m to deny drivers the wages and benefits we’re entitled to

===

OMFG

1 link?

https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/how-ohios-fascist-pro-nuke-attack-on-democracy-threatens-the-referendum-process-across-the-nation/

no lnx

How Ohio’s fascist pro-nuke attack on democracy threatens the referendum process across the nation

Written by Harvey Wasserman / Common Dreams October 20, 2019

A terrifying series of gestapo-style assaults, petiton buying, bribery, mass media manipulation and systematic intimidation has smacked into the attempt of Ohio citizens to repeal a billion-dollar bailout for two dangerously failing atomic reactors on Lake Erie.

The unprecedented assault threatens the referendum process in Ohio and across the nation.

It also threatens to keep on line two very old, dangerously decayed reactors where melt-downs and explosions could forever contaminate the Great Lakes region and more. (For a full explanation, hear this one-hour discussion).

The story may end Monday, October 21, when signatures are due to qualify an anti-nuclear referendum for the fall 2020 ballot.

It begins with the July passage by the gerrymandered Ohio Legislatureof HB6, a massive bailout scheme designed to subsidize the Perry and Davis-Besse nukes, plus two fifty-year-old coal burners, one of them in Indiana. HB6 does support ten small solar facilities. But it also kills an extremely popular, effective energy efficiency program along with larger subsidies for wind and solar energy in general.

The bailout is vehemently opposed by a large majority of Ohioans, including most of its usually pro-corporate media. Commercial, industrial and environmental groups did mount a massive campaign meant to stop the bill from passing. But with help from Democrats in both houses, the Legislature narrowly approved the bailouts.

Almost immediately, a referendum was filed for repeal. With 265,000 signatures due by October 21, Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts began hiring canvassers.

Ohio’s GOP Secretary of State delayed the process as long as possible. He waiting a full 20 days before turning down the first petition submission. He then waited another 20 to certify the second.

But as soon as the referendum supporters began gathering signatures, pro-nuke forces attacked with a fascist assault unlike any other in US history.

First they began running an astonishing wave of TV ads claiming thereferendum was a plot by Chinese Communists to take over Ohio’s electrical grid. The ads feature (they are still running!) hordes of goose-stepping Chinese soldiers, sinister footage of China’s dictator, shuttered US factories, and more.

Accompanied by high-gloss mass mailings, the pro-nuke forces are also running saturation radio ads warning Ohioans to shun all signature gatherers lest they be tracked by sinister communists out to ruin their lives and credit. A toll-free number is offered to those willing to call in the location of any repeal supporters.

But the pro-nuke gestapo has also leapt from mere media manipulation to physical intimidation.When the referendum-gatherers hit the streets, they were confronted by industry “blockers” to tangibly prevent them from doing their job. In one case (as filmed on a security camera) a blocker smacked the cell phone out of the hands of a signature gatherer as he tried to photograph her. Gatherers have widely reported close-up verbal assaults. In some cases as many as three paid blockers have surrounded a single signature gatherer to prevent anyone from coming near to signing a petition.

Because many of the signature gatherers are hired employees, they’re required to register contact information with the state. The pro-nuke mob has assaulted them with threatening phone calls. In some cases they’ve reportedly offered substantial cash payments and airline tickets if they leave the state. One signature gatherer reported being offered $2500 (!) for the day’s accumulated sign-up sheets, which would presumably then be shredded.

Under the circumstances, many now wonder if the pro-referendum forces have been able to accumulate the required 265,000 signatures, plus the many more needed for a traditional cushion. The Republican Secretary of State is certain to discard as many signatures as he can, especially with the micro-managed scrutiny of the nuclear industry.

The ramifications of such an outcome are staggering. It could signal the death of the popular referendum, a cornerstone of the democratic process.

It could also mean two old, uncompetitive, uninsured, un-inspected crumbling atomic reactors highly likely to explode will continue to threaten the entire Great Lakes region for years to come.

fac so

Southern legislatures take aim at direct democracy

After voters approved a constitutional amendment restoring the franchise to people with felony convictions, Florida lawmakers are trying to make it harder for citizens to put amendments on the ballot. Legislators in Arkansas, the only other Southern state that allows citizen-initiated amendments, did likewise after voters passed a minimum-wage hike.

[also have to pay any fees/fines to get vote back

===

Arizona Public Service Company

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Arizona_Public_Service_Company

icn -->

http://www.startribune.com/arizona-utility-finally-comes-clean-about-political-spending/509097912/

Facing what it saw as a threat to its monopoly from a surging rooftop solar industry, Arizona's largest utility secretly funneled millions of dollars to back favored candidates for the state commission regulating it.

Arizona Public Service Co. recently acknowledged it gave money to groups that spent $3.2 million in the 2014 Arizona Corporation Commission races. The disclosure in filings with the commission came after the utility refused for the past four years to confirm or deny its participation in the election despite broad suspicion that it did.

The spending raises questions about whether a regulated monopoly such as APS should be allowed to contribute money to political causes that could adversely affect customers, and whether it should be permitted to keep such spending secret.

"They are still taking ratepayer money and using it against the ratepayers to jack up their rates," said Tom Ryan, an attorney in metro Phoenix who has been a critic of some commission members.

The 2014 move by APS and its owner, Pinnacle West Capital Corp., was a break from a decades-long practice by the state's utilities of not meddling in political races involving their regulators. The utility spent on elections again in 2016 and 2018 but publicly disclosed it.

The shift led to years of negative press, along with an FBI investigation that continues to this day.

Pinnacle West and APS CEO Don Brandt was involved in deflecting news reports as the company funneled a combined $12.8 million to 15 political groups in 2014, including the $3.2 million that was spent in commission races.

The utility finally disclosed the spending late last month after a Democrat who took office in January joined with other commissioners to demand records.

It also provided details of $4.1 million in spending to influence its regulators' 2016 election and nearly$40 million to defeat a citizens' initiative last year that would have required that it get much more of its power from solar and other renewable sources.APS previously acknowledged those contributions.

"That was a policy issue with direct impact on our customers and our business and on Arizona," Jenna Rowell, the utility's director of external relations, said of the 2018 spending. "So we got involved in that early, we were up front about that. In addition to all of the required disclosures, we talked frequently and openly about why we were getting involved against that effort."

===

On its website Goddard Claussen lists clients as having included^{[4]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Goddard_Claussen#cite_note-3):

Health Insurance Association of America
Health Care First Coalition
Yes on Question 1 (Maine, '08)
Yes on Proposition 11 (California, '08)
No on Measure 50 (Oregon, '07)
No on Proposition 3 (Missouri, '06)
No on Proposition 82 (California, '06)
No on Proposition 89 (California, '06)
Yes on Proposition 64 (California, '04)
No on Proposition 30 and 31 (California, '00)

nielsen merksamer:

2010-2011

Open Primary/California SUPPORT passed top 2 non-part https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_14_(2010)

Voting on Municipilizing Power/California PG&E won https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_16,_Supermajority_Vote_Required_to_Create_a_Community_Choice_Aggregator_(June_2010)

Insurance Rate Change/California

Development Approval/Pleasanton

Reapportionment Commission/California

Vehicle fee for Parks/California

Protect Locals’ Revenue/California

Reverse a Sales tax Change/California

Budget & Taxes Vote/California

Definition of Fee vs. Tax/California

Mello-Roos Tax/Santa Clara Unified

Billboard Tax/West Hollywood

2008-2009

Education Funding/California

Housing and Parks/Santa Clara

Development Referendum/Rocklin

Eminent Domain/California

Napa Redevelopment/Napa

School Parcel Tax/San Francisco

Hunters Point Initiative/San Francisco

Home Depot/Thousand Oaks

Humane Farms/California NM support https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_2_(2008)

Energy/California

Reapportionment Commission/California

Beverly Hilton Hotel Referendum/Beverly Hills

School Unification/Pleasant Valley

Energy Municipalization/San Francisco

Open Space/City of Moraga

Open Space/Redwood City

Budget Reform/California

School Funding/California

Lottery Act Amendment/California

Tobacco Tax Amendment/California

Mental Health Revenue Amendment/California

No Raises in Deficit Years/California

Development Approval/Mendocino County

Neiman Marcus Approval/Walnut Creek

2006-2007

Reiner First 5/California

Transportation Bond/California

Education Bond/California

Water Bond/California

Tobacco Tax/California

Oil Severance Tax/California OPPOSE

https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_87,_Alternative_Energy_Oil_Tax_(2006)

School Parcel Tax/California

Public Funding of Campaign/California

Eminent Domain/California

SMUD Annexation/Sacramento, Placer and Yolo

Open Space/Albany

Signs/Parking Initiative/Santa Ana

Growth/Newport Beach

Development/Pacifica

Developer Referendum/Cupertino

Development/Freemont

Bay Meadows/City of San Mateo

2004-2005

Shakedown Lawsuits/California support won

https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_64,_Unfair_Business_Competition_Lawsuits_(2004) 7:1 $, cars, US CoC

Local Government Revenue Protection/California

Phone Tax for Medical Services/California

Indian Gaming/California

Racetrack/Card Club Gaming/California

Stem Cell Research/California

Higher Education Bonds/ California

Lower Vote on State Budget/California

No on M/San Francisco

Yes on AA (BART)

No on Measures A, B & C/ Glendale

No on Proposition B/ San Diego County

6 Other Local Measures

2002-2003

Voting Machines/California

Transportation Tax/California

Term Limits/California

Higher Education Bonds/ California

After School Funding/California

Election Day Registration/ California

Infrastructure Funding/California

13 Local Measures

2000-2001

Gang Violence/California

Campaign Reform/California

2 School Bonds Vote %/ California

Bad Faith Insurance/California

State Contracting/California

Pebble Beach Resort/Monterey

Rural Heritage/Sonoma

Hospital Initiative/Ventura County

Living Wage/Santa Monica

9 San Francisco Measures

8 Other Local Measures

1998-1999

State Contracting/California

Utility Regulation/California

School Bonds/California

Indian Gaming/California

Class Size Reduction/California

Transportation Funding/California

Padres' Stadium/San Diego

Charter Amendment/City of Alameda

1996-1997

Securities Lawsuits/California

Health Care-HMOs/California

Income Tax Increase/California

Attorneys Fees/California

School Bonds/California

Safe Bridges/California

49ers Stadium/San Francisco

3 San Francisco Measures

Charter Commission/Los Angeles

Hospital Merger/ Contra Costa County

Hospital Referendum/ Ventura County

Land Use Initiative/Napa County

Junkyard Referendum/ City of San Jose

1994-1995

Single Payer Health System/California OPPOSE

4% Gas Tax/California

Smoking Restrictions/California

Higher Education Bonds/California

K-12 School Bonds/California

Steinhart Aquarium/San Francisco

Downtown MUNI Tax/ San Francisco

FAIR Share/City of Petaluma

LEGO Development/ City of Carlsbad

1992-1993

Basic Health Care /California

Job-Terminator Tax /California

Welfare-Budget Reform /California

University Bonds/California

Cardrooms/Colma and Santa Clara

1990-1991

Transportation Bonds/California

Crime Victim Initiative/California

Redistricting/California

Anti-Business (Big Green) Initiative/California

Forests Forever Initiative/California

CAREFUL Initiative/California

Right to Vote/California

Prison Labor/California

Anti-Growth Initiative/ City of Burbank

Waterfront Development/ San Francisco

Mission Bay Development/ San Francisco

1988-1989

K-12 Guaranteed Funding/California

Tobacco Tax/California

Insurance Initiatives/California

Transportation Bonds/California

K-12 School Bonds/California

Regional Transit/Bay Area Counties

Mobile Home Rent Control/Lancaster

San Francisco Ballpark/ San Francisco

1986-1987

Tort Reform/California

School Bonds/California

No on Aids Testing/California

Toxics/California

Sales Tax/Alameda County

1979-1985

State School Building Bonds/California

Campaign Reform/California

Rent Control/County of Los Angeles

Abolish Inheritance Tax/California

Jarvis-Income Tax/California

Victims Bill of Rights/California

Peripheral Canal/California

Bottle Bill/California

Offshore Oil Restrictions/ County of Santa Barbara

Anti-Growth Initiative/Walnut Creek

Property Rights Initiative/Carson

Anti-Growth Referendum/ El Segundo

Toxics/City of West Covina

Rent Control Preemption/ California

Oil Excess Profit Tax/California

Smoking Restrictions/California

Gann Spending Limit/California

The Progressives and Direct Democracy

The 1890's are often viewed today as a happy time period when Americans lived uncomplicated lives with few problems to worry about. But, time has a way of covering up the negative and the ugly. Rather than being a "happy time," the 1890's may have been one of the worst times for Americans.

First of all, the 1890's was a time when a very few individuals and families made fantastic fortunes and lived the life of kings. By the turn of the century Andrew Carnegie, the steel tycoon, made over $20 million a year tax-free (there were no income taxes then). Yet, the vast majority of Americans were barely getting by. One of Carnegie's steelworkers would have earned about $450 a year working 12-hour shifts six days a week.

This was also a time when thousands of immigrants were flooding into the country from Europe. Many of these immigrants remained in the eastern industrial cities working for low wages in dirty and dangerous jobs. During the 1890's, the United States had one of the highest industrial accident rates in the world. Yet, workers who were severely injured or crippled could rarely collect any compensation.

Strikes were illegal at this time. Workers who attempted to go out on strike were often arrested or even beaten up by company thugs. A particularly ugly situation developed at Andrew Carnegie's Homestead steel works outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1892. Open warfare broke out between strikers and private guards hired by Carnegie to break the strike. Rifles and even cannons were used in a series of battles between the two sides that left 10 dead.

Times were tough for rural Americans, too. Farmers constantly complained that their lives were ruled by eastern bankers and railroad men. Farmers had to contend with high interest rates for loans in order to buy land, seed and farm equipment. They also had to pay outrageous freight rates set by the railroads in order to get their products to market. Many farm foreclosures resulted when crops failed or prices for farm products dropped.

All these economic problems increased in 1893 when a severe economic depression struck. Many thousands of Americans lost their jobs, farms and homes. The prevailing attitude of government, however, was to stay out of the way of private business. Little was done by the government, from Congress on down to city councils, to reduce the economic suffering of the people.

Corruption and Reform

During the early years of the new century, those individuals who tried to approach government with proposals to improve the lot of factory workers, farmers and small businessmen had little success. Especially at the local and state levels of government, lawmakers were often controlled by political machines and special interest groups. At this time, local and state government reached a low point in American history. Greed, corruption, and outright bribery were common among many politicians.

A New York Times editorial of July 3, 1911, complained that "Respectable and well-meaning men all over the State and especially in this city, are going about saying: 'What is the use? You only replace one lot of rascals by another, generally worse."' Across the country in California, the Southern Pacific Railroadcontrolled the state legislature and dictated how the state should be run. This was always to the benefit of the railroad. In many states at this time, railroads and other large corporations saw to it that legislatures did nothing to interfere with their profits, power and privilege.

By the early 1900's, reform minded individuals and groups spoke out increasingly against the "robber barons," as the big bankers, industrialists and railroad men were called. Farm, labor, and small business groups along with ministers and journalists charged that the enormous wealth of big business was secured by exploiting hardworking Americans. Political cartoonists portrayed big corporations like the Southern Pacific Railroad as grasping octopuses. A particular target of the reformers were city and state governments that often cooperated or were regularly paid off by the big business interests.

The period from 1890 to 1917 was a time of intense reform activity in the United States. Many different reform movements existed at this time, ranging from farmers who wanted to regulate railroad freight rates, to women fighting for the right to vote, to city social workers trying to improve the health of immigrant children. Generally, these advocates of reform were middle class professionals and small businessmen, both Republicans and Democrats. They wanted changes to take place in American society, but not radical or revolutionary changes. They wanted government to take a more active role in regulating big business. They also realized that before meaningful changes could take place, the stranglehold over local and state government by corrupt politicians and the huge corporations had to be broken. The reformers of this time called themselves "progressives."

The Progressive Movement

The first successes of the progressive reformers were achieved in city governments. Corrupt city officials were publicly exposed, voted out of office, and replaced by reform leaders. Under progressive administrations, cities like Toledo, Ohio, established the minimum wage, the eight-hour day, and paid vacations for workers.

Some cities took over the ownership of gas, water and electric utilities. In many cities, employees were hired and promoted through a civil service system that eliminated the old method of paying off political debts with overpaid city jobs. City government itself was reformed. Party politics was removed in some cities when candidates for mayor, city council, and the school board ran in nonpartisan elections. In spite of their successes at the local level of government, progressives realized that it was at the state level that the most important changes had to take place.

The Progressive Movement won its first important victory at the state level of government with the election of Robert M. La Follette as governor of Wisconsin in 1900. A Republican, "Battling Bob" La Follette served three two-year terms as governor. From 1901 to 1906, La Follette spearheaded numerous progressive reforms. His leadership helped Wisconsin establish a railroad regulation commission to set fair freight rates. A graduated state income tax that taxed the rich at a higher rate was passed into law. A pure food law was voted in. A corrupt political practices act became law. A direct primary system was enacted allowing political party members rather than party bosses to nominate candidates. "Battling Bob" also modernized state government with the so-called "Wisconsin Idea." This involved participation in government by experts such as political scientists, economists and educators.

The astounding success of La Follette's progressivism in Wisconsin swept the country. Soon, other reform-minded leaders were adapting La Follette's ideas to their own states. When Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, became governor of New Jersey in 1911, he put into practice many of La Follette's reforms. In California, Hiram Johnson was elected governor in 1910 after attacking the domination of state government by the Southern Pacific Railroad. In a remarkable legislative session in 1911, Johnson pushed through many progressive changes inspired by La Follette's experience in Wisconsin. Johnson went even further when he successfully stumped the state for a state constitutional amendment providing for the initiative, referendum and recall.

The Progressive Movement also influenced national politics. When Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, became President after McKinley was assassinated in 1901, he promoted a number of reforms at the national level of government. Federal laws dealt with the regulation of corporations and railroads, government meat inspection, workmen's compensation for industrial accidents, and wilderness conservation. When Woodrow Wilson became president, he, too, transformed many of his progressive ideas into national legislation.

Perhaps the highpoint of the national Progressive Movement was the formation of the Progressive Party in 1912. This party was made up mainly of Republicans who felt that party leaders had turned their backs on progressive goals. The Progressive Party presidential candidate was Theodore Roosevelt, who believed that the man who had replaced him in the White House, Republican William Howard Taft, had failed to promote progressive reforms.

The 1912 platform of the Progressive Party contained most of the ideas that the progressives held dear to their hearts. The platform attacked the "unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics." It went on to support such reforms as the direct election of U.S. senators, women's suffrage, industrial safety laws, a minimum wage for women, the eight-hour day, unemployment insurance, an inheritance tax, collective bargaining for workers, a ban on child labor, and the initiative, referendum and recall. The platform was an agenda for needed legislation in the new century. Nearly all the ideas promoted by the Progressive Party in 1912 eventually became law. This was the Progressive Party legacy. It led the United States into modern times.

Despite widespread popularity, Teddy Roosevelt and his vice-presidential running mate, California's Hiram Johnson, lost to Woodrow Wilson. Over the next few years many Progressive Party candidates were defeated. By 1917, the party had ceased to exist. With the entrance of the U.S. intoWorld War I in 1917, the interests of Americans were directed overseas. The Progressive Movement quietly disappeared, although La Follette and other progressives remained prominent in politics for many years.

The Swiss Connection

In 1909, George Judson King, an officer of the Ohio Direct Legislative League, visited Switzerland. A progressive, King was interested in studying the various forms of direct democracy practiced by the Swiss. He discovered that Switzerland had adopted a national referendum procedure in 1874 following a period of political corruption. The Swiss added a nationwide initiative for constitutional amendments in 1891. While in Switzerland, King interviewed several government leaders asking them what they thought about the referendum and initiative. One official told him, "The Swiss people recognize in the initiative and referendum their shield and sword. With the shield of the referendum they ward off legislation they do not desire; with the sword of the initiative they cut the way for the enactment of their own ideas into law."

Other Americans before and after King who visited Switzerland were also impressed with how the referendum and initiative worked. They returned to the U.S. with their favorable observations, and made the referendum and initiative an important part of the progressive agenda for reform. While Governor of New Jersey, Woodrow Wilson stated that the referendum and initiative were "the safeguard of politics." Direct democracy, Wilson said, "takes power from the boss and places it in the hands of the people."

The first state to adopt the initiative idea into its constitution was South Dakota in 1898. Utah followed in 1900, and Oregon did the same in 1902. Sixteen more states provided for the initiative process between 1906 and 1918 during the heyday of the Progressive Movement. The remaining four states with the initiative (Alaska, Wyoming, Illinois and Florida) did not adopt this form of direct democracy until after 1950. The

District of Columbia got the initiative last in 1977. Seventeen of the twenty-three initiative states lie west of the Mississippi River.

Getting The "I and R" In Oregon

Oregon was not the first state to get the initiative and referendum. But, the story of how the "I and R" were finally added to its state constitution illustrates how the progressives fought for their reforms in many states around the turn of the century.

Like many states in the 1890's, Oregon was largely in the hands of the wealthy corporations, particularly the railroads. The state government had become inefficient and corrupt. One journalist of the time described the Oregon state legislature as being filled with "briefless lawyers, farmless farmers, business failures, bar-room loafers, Fourth-of-July-orators, and political thugs." The majority of the lawmakers were ignorant, illiterate and lazy. Legislative sessions at Salem, the state capital, took place along with public drunkenness and flocks of prostitutes ready to offer their services to the lawmakers.

The economic depression of 1893 ruined many Oregon farmers. The farmers blamed Wall Street, the railroads, and their own corrupt state government. Into this situation stepped a man with a strange name: William Simon U'Ren.

Born in Wisconsin and educated in Colorado, U'Ren was a wanderer. Over the years he had worked as a blacksmith, bookkeeper, and lawyer. When he arrived in Oregon in 1892, U'Ren joined a group of reform minded farmers in Clackamas County. After reading about the Swiss experience with direct democracy, U'Ren launched a ten year crusade for an initiative and referendum, the "I and R," in Oregon.

U'Ren organized a petition drive calling for an amendment to the state constitution that would provide for the "I and R." Many women working for the right to vote aided U'Ren. Female teachers frequently spoke in favor of the "I and R" at meetings and social gatherings held in schoolhouses all over the state. When the legislative session met at Salem in 1895 (it met every two years), U'Ren had 15,000 signatures on petitions calling for the "I and R." However, the Republican political machine that controlled the legislature at that time opposed the reforms. So, the lawmakers ignored U'Ren and his petitions.

U'Ren decided to change his tactics. He later said, "I now decided to get the reforms by using our enemies' own methods-by fighting the devil with fire." First, U'Ren ran for a seat in the state legislature in 1896. After winning the election, he organized a revolt in the legislative session of 1897. U'Ren managed to put together a group of lawmakers who for one reason or another opposed the political leaders of the legislature. Although U'Ren's group was in the minority, it refused to participate in any legislative business. The rebels even refused to take their oath of office. These actions effectively prevented a quorum, so lawmaking came to a standstill. Absolutely nothing happened during the entire legislative session of 1897.

During the next regularly scheduled session of the state legislature, U'Ren again threatened to stop all official business unless the political bosses agreed to support his "I and R" constitutional amendment. The politicians gave in and the legislature approved the amendment. However, constitutional amendments had to be passed by two succeeding legislative sessions before being submitted to the people for ratification. So, U'Ren had to wait until 1902 before the "I and R" finally became part of the state constitution. However, by this time the initiative and referendum were so popular in the state that almost everyone was behind it. In the words of one journalist, it was a "quiet revolution." William Simon U'Ren later became a progressive governor of Oregon.

http://www.crf-usa.org/election-central/the-progressives.html

wiki

California — January 28, 1913 27th amend ratified

Calls for a constitutional amendment regarding Senate elections started in the early 19th century, with Henry R. Storrs in 1826 proposing an amendment to provide for popular election.^[21] Similar amendments were introduced in 1829 and 1855, with the "most prominent" proponent being Andrew Johnson, who raised the issue in 1868 and considered the idea's merits "so palpable" that no additional explanation was necessary.^[22] In the 1860s, there was a major Congressional dispute over the issue, with the House and Senate voting to veto the appointment of John P. Stockton to the Senate due to his approval by a plurality rather than a majority vote for the office. In reaction, the Congress passed a bill in July 1866 that required state legislatures to elect senators by an absolute majority.^[22]

By the 1890s, support for the introduction of direct election for the Senate had substantially increased, and reformers worked on two fronts. On the first front, the Populist Party incorporated the direct election of senators into its Omaha Platform, adopted in 1892.^[23] In 1908, Oregon passed the first law that based the selection of U.S. senators on a popular vote. Oregon was soon followed by Nebraska.^[24] Proponents for popular election noted that ten states already had non-binding primaries for Senate candidates,^[25] in which the candidates would be voted on by the public, effectively serving as advisory referenda instructing state legislatures how to vote;^[25] reformers campaigned for more states to introduce a similar method.

William Randolph Hearst opened a nationwide popular readership for direct election of U.S. Senators in a 1906 series of articles using flamboyant language attacking “The Treason of the Senate” in his Cosmopolitan Magazine. David Graham Philips, one of the "yellow journalists" whom President Teddy Roosevelt called “muckrakers”, described Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island as the principal “traitor” among the “scurvy lot” in control of the Senate by theft, perjury, and bribes corrupting the state legislatures to gain election to the Senate. A few state legislatures began to petition the Congress for direct election of senators. By 1893, the House had the two-thirds vote for just such an amendment. However, when the joint resolution reached the Senate, it failed from neglect, as it did again in 1900, 1904 and 1908; each time the House approved the appropriate resolution, and each time it died in the Senate.^[26]

On the second national legislative front, reformers worked toward a constitutional amendment, which was strongly supported in the House of Representatives but initially opposed by the Senate. Bybee notes that the state legislatures, which would lose power if the reforms went through, were supportive of the campaign. By 1910, 31 state legislatures had passed resolutions calling for a constitutional amendment allowing direct election, and in the same year ten Republican senators who were opposed to reform were forced out of their seats, acting as a "wake-up call to the Senate".^[25]

Reformers included William Jennings Bryan, while opponents counted respected figures such as Elihu Root and George Frisbie Hoar among their number; Root cared so strongly about the issue that after the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment, he refused to stand for re‑election to the Senate.^[11] Bryan and the reformers argued for popular election through highlighting perceived flaws with the existing system, specifically corruption and electoral deadlocks, and through arousing populist sentiment. Most important was the populist argument; that there was a need to "Awaken, in the senators...a more acute sense of responsibility to the people", which it was felt they lacked; election through state legislatures was seen as an anachronism that was out of step with the wishes of the American people, and one that had led to the Senate becoming "a sort of aristocratic body – too far removed from the people, beyond their reach, and with no special interest in their welfare".^[27] The settlement of the West and continuing absorption of hundreds of thousands of immigrants expanded the sense of "the people."

---

John Potter Stockton (August 2, 1826 – January 22, 1900) was a New Jersey politician who served in the United States Senate as a Democrat.

Born in Princeton, New Jersey, Stockton was the son of Robert F. Stockton, grandson of Richard Stockton (1764-1828) and the great-grandson of Richard Stockton (1730-1781), both prominent New Jersey politicians. He graduated from Princeton University, then known as the College of New Jersey, where he studied law.

Stockton's first foray into politics was as US Minister to the Papal States (1858–1861). After returning to New Jersey to practice law for four years, he was elected to the Senate. His first tenure lasted barely a year before he voted against the proposition of the Fourteenth Amendment, which failed to pass the Senate by one vote.

In response, the Senate passed a motion, by a majority of one, to unseat him even though the constitution specified that a two-thirds majority was required to expel a Senator. The inventive response to this was that the Senate was unseating him retroactively, which was claimed to be quite distinct from expulsion.

The outrage caused by this led to New Jersey rescinding its ratification of the Amendment, in protest of his arbitrary removal. He returned to the Senate, this time for a full six-year term, in 1869. Stockton served as New Jersey Attorney General from 1877 to 1897.

Stockton died in New York City in 1900 at the age of 73. He was interred in Princeton Cemetery, in the Princeton, New Jersey.

---

https://siecles.revues.org/1109

http://www.economist.com/node/18548119

Direct democracy is an old idea that has come a long way from its origins in ancient Greece. In the United States, direct democracy is a political artifact of the Progressive Era left over from the early twentieth century. Almost every state with direct democracy adopted it at that time; none adopted it before 1898 and very few have since 1920.1 Direct democracy in the United States is also a regional phenomenon of the American West. About half of the fifty states have direct democracy, but 80% of them are in the West.2 And of course, no state has made more use of direct democracy, for good or ill, than has California, the big western tail that wags the American dog when it comes to direct democracy and just about everything else. In recent years it has become fashionable among media pundits to blame direct democracy for California’s political paralysis and financial basket-case status.3 So how did California become America’s poster child for reform gone awry and for good intentions leading to catastrophic unintended consequences ?

4 John Hoyt Williams, A Great and Shining Road: The Epic Story of the Transcontinental Railroad (New (...)

5 Richard J. Orsi, Sunset Limited: The Southern Pacific Railroad and the Development of the American (...)

2The story of how direct democracy turned California into a political train wreck begins, appropriately enough, with a railroad. Californians had high hopes for the transcontinental railroad project, completed in 1869 with generous public subsidies. The railroad was supposed to usher in a new era of rapid growth and prosperity for California. By connecting the state more closely to the rest of the United States, the railroad could bring people out west, while carrying the products of California’s farms and factories back east.4 Most Californians imagined that the railroad would be a simple, benign technology, but in fact it was a monopoly corporation, known as the Central Pacific Railroad, which soon enjoyed near-total control over all transportation into, out of, and within the state – and this corporation was anything but benign. Some historians praise the railroad for its contributions to California’s growth and development; it certainly did represent a drastic improvement in transportation efficiency over the days of covered wagons, stagecoaches, and sailing ships.5

6 White, Railroaded; Charles Edward Russell, Stories of the Great Railroads (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr (...)

7 Russell, Stories of the Great Railroads, 281-308; Stuart Daggett, Chapters on the History of the So (...)

8 Crocker quoted in Joseph S. O’Flaherty, An End and a Beginning: The South Coast and Los Angeles, 18 (...)

3No one suggests that the railroad on balance was bad for California, given that the state’s agriculture, industry, and commerce all depended on it. The railroadwas California’s biggest employer and biggest private landowner; it promoted local products and lured hordes of tourists and settlers to the state as well. The problem with the railroad was that it insisted on controlling California’s growth and development for its own benefit while reaping an unfair share of the profits.6 In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, California suffered from some of the highest, most complicated, and least predictable railroad rates in the world. Charges for carrying passengers and freight varied capriciously between different destinations, different customers, and for different cargoes; rates also changed constantly, rising and falling not with actual railroad costs but with the market price of products being transported. The railroad, not the producer, grabbed most of the profit to be earned by shipping products from one place to another. As a result, California’s farmers, merchants, and manufacturers often found themselves priced out of national markets due to transportation costs.7 And the railroad routinely blackmailed California towns and cities into handing over taxpayer subsidies and land grants in exchange for the privilege of a rail connection. Charles Crocker, co-owner of the Central Pacific, told the Los Angeles City Council in 1872 that if they did not pay the ransom he demanded, “I will make the grass grow in the streets of your city.”8 Nowadays large employers and professional sports teams play this hardball game of corporate blackmail, but western railroads such as the Central Pacific invented the technique in the late nineteenth century. In 1882, the Central Pacific changed its name to the Southern Pacific after a complex merger, but it was the same railroad company with the same monopoly power – and with increasing political power as well.

9 Debates and Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of the State of California, Convened at th (...)

10 McAfee, California’s Railroad Era, 91-217; Alexander Callow, Jr., “The Legislature of a Thousand Sc (...)

11 “Bribery in California,” New York Times, Aug. 17, 1891; Salvador A. Ramirez, ed., The Octopus Speak (...)

4California adopted a new constitution in 1879 to start regulating and taxing the railroad, and this seems to have spurred the company into politics.9 Railroad lobbyists and attorneys dispensed a torrent of bribes and favors to “influence” California legislators, officials, judges, and newspaper editors in exchange for favorable legislation, regulations, rulings, and press coverage. Behind the scenes, agents of the Southern Pacific controlled party conventions, legislative sessions, court hearings, regulatory decisions, and even the outcomes of elections.10 Corruption in California politics was like wind or gravity: people couldn’t see it directly, but they could observe its effects in the form of relentlessly pro-railroad public policy, year after year. Periodic upsurges of reform failed to bring the Southern Pacific to heel; the company went on charging high rates, paying low taxes, blackmailing communities, monopolizing land, and paying off politicians while soaking up subsidies and tax breaks.11 California was not unique in this regard: many western states in the late nineteenth century suffered from the twin evils of corporate domination and political corruption. But California was exceptional in the extent to which it was dominated by a single corporation: the Southern Pacific Railroad, locally known as “The Octopus.”

12 Frank Norris, The Octopus: The Epic of Wheat, A Story of California (New York: Collier, 1901). See (...)

13 R. Hal Williams, The Democratic Party and California Politics, 1880-1896 (Stanford, CA: Stanford Un (...)

14 Samuel G. Blythe, “Putting the Rollers Under the S.P.,” Saturday Evening Post 183 (Jan. 7, 1911): 6 (...)

5Long before Frank Norris’ novel by that name appeared in 1901, California cartoonists were depicting the railroad as a monster Octopus with tentacles of steel wrapped around farmers, workers, merchants, and manufacturers, squeezing the lifeblood of commerce out of them.12 After 1900, Californians watched with envy as self-styled “progressives” gained power in other states and brought their corporate adversaries to heel, notably in Wisconsin under Governor Robert La Follette. Why not in California, too? Anti-railroad reformers in California did wage several campaigns through the Populist party and the Democratic party without success in the 1890s and 1900s, but the breakthrough came in 1910, when progressives seized control of the state’s Republican party.13 They nominated Hiram Johnson, a fiery anti-railroad attorney, to run for governor that year. Johnson had distinguished himself as lead prosecutor in the San Francisco graft trials of 1906 to 1909, when he put San Francisco’s corrupt political boss behind bars. Hence there was reason to believe that when Johnson vowed to “kick the railroad out of politics,” he meant it. Johnson and his fellow progressive Republicans swept the state elections of 1910, and when the next state legislature gathered in 1911, reformers had control at last.14 They did not, however, presume that their victory would be permanent. Governor Johnson and his comrades expected that the Octopus would recover from its temporary setback and somehow outmaneuver them in the next election. This is why California progressives acted so boldly after their smashing victory in 1910, because they figured they might have only one chance to tame the Octopus.

15 Franklin Hichborn, Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1911 (San Francisco: James (...)

16 Spencer C. Olin, Jr., California’s Prodigal Sons: Hiram Johnson and the Progressives, 1911-1917 (Be (...)

17 Ida Husted Harper, The History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. 6 (New York: National American Woman Suffrag (...)

The 1911 session of the California legislature ranks as the single most important session ever held in the history of the state. Besides passing landmark legislation to regulate the railroad, and other major reforms of state government, the progressives also acted to permanently increase the power of California voters.15 Governor Johnson and his fellow progressives believed that more democracy was the best way to prevent a return of political corruption and corporate rule in the future. Confident in the people’s wisdom, the progressives assumed that more power in the people’s hands would mean less power for the Southern Pacific or any other wealthy interest that might try to dominate state government in the future.16 As a sign of their trust in voters, the progressives quickly approved woman suffrage, and California would become the sixth state in the nation, by far the largest yet, to let women vote.17 But woman suffrage, which practically doubled the size of the electorate overnight, was not the only technique that the progressives had in mind for increasing democracy. As Governor Johnson said in his 1911 inaugural address:

18 Inaugural Address of Governor Hiram W. Johnson Before the Senate and Assembly of the State of Calif (...)

“How best can we arm the people to protect themselves hereafter? . . . We can give to the people the means by which they may accomplish such other reforms as they desire, [and] the means as well by which they may prevent the misuse of the power. . . .The first step in our design to preserve and perpetuate popular government shall be the adoption of the initiative, the referendum, and the recall.”18

19 Goebel, A Government by the People, 25-90; James D. Barnett, The Operation of the Initiative, Refer (...)

20 V. O. Key, Jr., and Winston W. Crouch, The Initiative and the Referendum in California (Berkeley: U (...)

7 By 1911, California progressives were already familiar with these basic mechanisms of direct democracy. Progressive reformers across the American West were taking up the initiative, the referendum, and the recall as promising solutions to problems of corruption and corporate influence in politics. Starting with South Dakota in 1898, eight western states had recently adopted direct democracy, including California’s neighboring state of Oregon in 1902. Progressives in Oregon used direct democracy to enact sweeping electoral reforms, and there was hope that California might follow suit – especially since several California cities and towns had already adopted direct democracy on the local level and had even begun using it.19 California’s leading advocate for direct democracy was Dr. John Randolph Haynes, a wealthy physician and real estate investor in Los Angeleswho developed a strong interest in this particular reform. Dr. Haynes founded the Direct Legislation League in 1900 and for decades he devoted his time and his sizeable fortune to lobbying and publicity on behalf of direct democracy.20 Haynes helped convince many progressives, including Governor Johnson, that direct democracy was the best insurance policy against future corruption. As Haynes explained:

21 John R. Haynes speech to the University Club, 1909, as quoted in Laura Tallian, Direct Democracy: A (...)

“Even the election of good men to office . . . frequently fails to produce any marked effect because these men often . . . fail to preserve their integrity. . . . The remedy is a plain and simple one. . . . Give the honest majority . . . the power to initiate and enact legislation which their legislative bodies . . . may refuse; this is the initiative. Give to the honest majority the power to veto the undesired acts of their legislature; this is the referendum. Give to the same honest majority the power to discharge from office at any time the inefficient and incompetent . . . public servant; this is the recall.”21

22 Hichborn, Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1911, 20, 93-101, 137-142; Key and (...)

23 Samuel E. Moffett, “Constitutional Referendum in California,” Political Science Quarterly 13 (Mar. (...)

24 Inaugural Address of Governor Johnson, 5.

8 Although he never ran for office himself, Dr. Haynes was a savvy politician. He remained non-partisan while soliciting endorsements from labor and reform groups and extracting pledges of support from candidates in both parties. Governor Johnson let Dr. Haynes help draft the direct democracy amendments to the state constitution, which the legislature approved in 1911.22 Californians were already accustomed to voting on constitutional amendments passed by the legislature; but the initiative, the referendum, and the recall would give them the power to legislate directly for themselves.23 This power of direct democracy, and its frequent exercise, would become the most distinctive feature of California politics – for better or for worse. The initiative allows registered voters in California to sign petitions in order to place laws on the ballot for approval or rejection by the electorate. Anyone who can get enough signatures – a number equal to 8 % of the total number of ballots cast for governor in the last election – can place any law on the ballot at the next state election as a numbered “proposition.” If a majority votes “yes” on the proposition, then it becomes law, even though the legislature never approved it and the governor never signed it.The initiative process can be used for regular statutes (with a lower signature requirement) or for constitutional amendments, but it is almost always used for amendments because initiative sponsors hope this will render their laws more impervious to court challenges.Initiatives themselves are immune to amendment except through another initiative.California’s all-powerful initiative, not subject to legislative amendment or approval, is proof that the progressives wanted voters to have supreme authority to pass their own laws irrespective of politicians and parties, which the progressives considered suspect and prone to corruption anyway. The Southern Pacific and other wealthy interests might be able to bribe delegates to party conventions and members of the legislature, but they could never bribe a majority of the voters. Hence the initiative appealed to progressives as a bulwark against the return of corrupt politics. As Johnson said in his inaugural address, the initiative would “place in the hands of the people the means by which they may protect themselves.”24

25 The word “referendum” is sometimes used generically for all types of direct democracy.

9 The second form of direct democracy in California is the referendum. Once the legislature passes a law, anyone who gathers enough signatures of registered voters – a number equal to 5 % of the total number of ballots cast for governor in the last election – can suspend implementation of the law, place it on the ballot at the next state election, and give voters a chance to repeal the law. The referendum is essentially the initiative in reverse: the legislature has already passed a law, and the governor has signed it, but the voters can repeal it with a referendum. Progressives believed that this would provide another method for voters to overrule corrupt politicians in the legislature and reassert the will of the people in defiance of wealthy interests. The referendum, like the initiative, was supposed to help California voters protect themselves against any future return ofcorporate influence in politics.25

26 Larry N. Gerston and Terry Christensen, Recall! California’s Political Earthquake (Armonk, NY: M.E. (...)

27 Joshua Spivak, “California’s Recall: Adoption of the ‘Grand Bounce’ for Elected Officials,” Califor (...)

28 Editorials in Los Angeles Times, Sept. 10 and Sept. 8, 1911, as quoted in Key and Crouch, Initiativ (...)

29 Inaugural Address of Governor Johnson, 6; Johnson quoted in Frederick L. Bird and Frances M. Ryan, (...)

10The third form of California’s direct democracy system, the recall, is the one least often used, and yet it attracted worldwide attention in 2003, when California voters recalled their governor and replaced him with a Hollywood movie star.26 In a recall, anyone who thinks an elected state official is unsatisfactory for any reason, or for no reason, can try to gather enough signatures from registered voters – a number equal to 12 % of the number of ballots cast for that official’s office in the last election – and in this way give the voters a chance to remove the official from office. Even if an officeholder was elected fair and square, if enough voters later find that person unacceptable, they can “throw the rascal out.” A recall election is actually two elections at once: voters get to vote yes or no on the recall, and at the same time vote for a replacement if the recall is successful. The recall was another electoral weapon that California progressives wanted voters to have in their arsenal for future use. If politicians were frequently dishonest, at least the voters were not, so the assumption was that empowering voters to remove politicians who had betrayed the people’s trust would deter such malfeasance in office even after the progressives themselves had passed from the scene.27 Opponents of the progressives protested that with direct democracy, the “ignorance and caprice and irresponsibility of the multitude” would reign supreme and it would “play merry hell with the business and prosperity of the state.”28 Critics focused their attacks on how the recall would affect the judiciary. Giving voters the power to recall judges would upset the constitutional balance of powers, endanger property rights, and undermine judicial independence, the critics charged. Such arguments held little sway, however. Speaking for all progressives, Governor Johnson declared “our deep-rooted belief . . . not only in the right of the people to govern, but in their ability to govern,” which was difficult to argue against. Johnson defended the recall by asserting that “if the people have the right, the ability, and the intelligence to elect, they have as well the right, ability, and intelligence to reject or to recall.” He dismissed concerns about intimidated judges this way: “You can’t make a coward of a man by holding a pistol at his head; you can only demonstrate whether he is one.”29

30 “The Twenty-Three Amendments,” San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 2, 1911; “Another Progressive Victory, (...)

31 George E. Mowry, Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement (Madison: University of Wisconsin (...)

11In October 1911, California voters approved the initiative, referendum, and recall amendments by a three-to-one margin. They also approved women’s suffrage, railroad regulation, workmen’s compensation, and a raft of other progressive reforms in the same election. No less than twenty-two amendments to the state constitution passed all at once, revolutionizing California government overnight and thrusting Governor Johnson into the national limelight as a progressive champion.30 A year later, when ex-president Theodore Roosevelt ran for president again as candidate of the new Progressive party in 1912, he praised California’s reform accomplishments and chose Johnson as his running mate. Roosevelt and Johnson lost the 1912 election, but the legacy of direct democracy that Johnson and the progressives bequeathed to California has remained in place ever since with only slight changes along the way.31

32 “Grant Recall a Sensation,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 10, 1914; John R. Haynes, “Abuses of Direct Leg (...)

33 Hichborn, Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1915, 109-119; “California Clings t (...)

12 Conservatives predicted that disaster would ensue from the passage of “freak legislation” in California. Business was expected to flee the state, investors to pull out their funds, and home-seekers to look elsewhere. In fact, however, the progressive revolution of 1911 ushered in two decades of rapid growth and prosperity such as the state had not seen since the Gold Rush. Dire warnings that direct democracy would lead to rule by tyrannical majorities goaded on by demagogues never came true. Nonetheless, there were some early indications that direct democracy might not serve the ends that Governor Johnson and the progressives originally had in mind. For example, the first successful state recall elections in 1913 and 1914, using this tool of progressive politics, removed two progressive legislators from office. One of them, State Senator Edwin Grant of San Francisco, had voted for anti-liquor and anti-prostitution bills, which prompted saloon and brothel owners to seek revenge by gathering signatures, some of them forged, and mounting a successful recall against him.32 In 1915, the first statewide referendum, using another progressive electoral tool, repealed a key progressive law, backed by Governor Johnson, which would have made all state elections non-partisan. The legislature had approved Johnson’s plan, but outraged party leaders gathered signatures and forced a referendum on non-partisan state elections – which the voters rejected. The progressive legislature then passed an open primary law, which would at least encourage non-partisanship, but state party leaders forced another referendum on this law in 1916, and the voters rejected it, too.33 These early uses of the recall and the referendum – to expel progressive legislators and to repeal progressive electoral reforms – did not bode well for progressive hopes for direct democracy.

34 Frank Parker Stockbridge, “The Single Taxers: Who They Are, and What They Are Doing,” Everybody’s M (...)

35 Franklin Hichborn, “Sources of Opposition to Direct Legislation in California,” Transactions of the (...)

13The initiative also yielded some unintended consequences in its early years. A variety of minor matters were placed on the ballot by fringe groups interested in them, but the most controversial initiatives pertained to taxes and alcohol. Advocates of a “single tax” on land values to replace all other taxes sponsored a string of initiatives that cluttered state ballots for years. None of the measures passed, but progressives were displeased that the “single tax,” which most of them opposed, made its way onto the ballot no less than six times between 1912 and 1938. Opponents of direct democracy even began calling themselves “anti-single taxers” in order to gain support for curtailing the initiative process itself.34 Like single-taxers, California’s prohibitionists also pounced on the initiative to force votes on a number of anti-liquor laws. Most California progressives outside of the state’s southern half were not prohibitionists, and yet thanks to the initiative process, anti-liquor measures repeatedly cropped up on the ballot – going down to defeat every time. Some voters grumbled over the proliferation of propositions in November 1914, when an all-time record seventeen initiatives appeared on a single ballot, but the measures were all fairly minor and most of them failed anyway. This was typical of the early years of the initiative: fewer than one in three initiatives passed before 1920, and about a quarter of voters participating in any given election refused even to vote on the propositions.35 Already in this period, paid signature gatherers for initiative campaigns were a cause of complaint. As the San Francisco Chronicle editorialized in 1917:

“The abuses of direct legislation are the result of paid solicitation. When the people really wish to stop these abuses they will make paid solicitation a penal offense. It will probably require a little more time . . . to produce that result.”

36 “Regulating Election Laws,” San Francisco Chronicle editorial, Mar. 14, 1917; Charles M. Price, “Si (...)

14Ninety-five years later, we are still waiting; most initiative sponsors make use of paid signature-gatherers to help qualify their measures for the ballot.36

37 Allswang, The Initiative and Referendum in California, 32-35; Key and Crouch, Initiative and the Re (...)

38 Allswang, The Initiative and Referendum in California, 35-43; California State Board of Control, Ca (...)

15 In the 1920s, the total number of ballot initiatives in California began to rise, but the proportion that passed remained below one in three. Anti-liquor initiatives continued appearing on the ballot even after the onset of federal prohibition in 1919. California voters voiced their displeasure with the federal law by using a referendum to reject state enforcement of prohibition in 1920, but curiously, they reversed themselves two years later – the only time California voters ever approved an anti-liquor measure. Eventually, Californians changed their minds again: in 1932, the voters repealed the state prohibition enforcement law at the behest of grape growers, bottle manufacturers, and hotel owners who supplied funds for a successful initiative against it. Thereafter California voters returned to their usual pattern of rejecting every anti-liquor measure that came before them. The last was a “local option” initiative in 1948 that was rejected by a 70 % majority.37 Other high-profile initiatives of the 1920s included a strengthened ban on land ownership by Asian immigrants that was backed by large farmers, and a referendum sponsored bymargarine producers that successfully repealed taxes and marketing restrictions on their product. Dairy companies in the butter business spent heavily against this referendum, but margarine companies calling themselves the “Anti-Food Tax Association” spent more than twice as much and prevailed. Business interests were already learning how to use direct democracy for their own self-interested purposes.38

39 George W. Bemis, “Sectionalism and Representation in the California State Legislature, 1911-1931,” (...)

40 RudolphSpreckels, How the 1922 Water and Power Act Was Defeated (San Francisco: California State W (...)

41 Report of Senate Committee Appointed to Investigate Expenditures For and Against Measures on the Ba (...)

16In 1926, California voters approved a legislative reapportionment initiative backed by rural interests that severely reduced representation for the state’s burgeoning cities, creating one of the most unfairly apportioned legislatures in the nation. This was an early indication that direct democracy could have profoundly undemocratic consequences.39 Progressives also learned in the 1920s that contrary to their expectations, big business had little to fear from direct democracy. On three occasions, California voters rejected initiatives that would have created a state-owned hydroelectric power authority to compete with privately owned power companies. All of the leading California progressives, including Johnson and Haynes, backed these public power initiatives, but private power companies spent over half a million dollars against them, and they were all defeated by wide margins.40 The ability of wealthy corporations such as Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison to spend lavishly on advertising and publicity in order to defeat progressive initiatives showed that direct democracy might not always work to protect “The People” against “The Interests,” given the pronounced imbalance of financial resources between the two. In 1923, a special committee of the California legislature investigated the role of private power companies in defeating the public power initiatives. The legislators concluded that in direct democracy elections,“Victory is on the side of the biggest purse.” They bemoaned “the power of money in influencing public opinion, [and] its ability to carry popular elections through vast expenditures for propaganda, advertising, literature, and organized campaign workers.”41

42 David B. Magleby, Direct Legislation: Voting on Ballot Propositions in the United States (Baltimore (...)

17 The anti-public power campaigns of the 1920s started the trend toward growing usage of direct democracy by the very sorts of wealthy interests that it was supposed to hold in check. The next phase in the gradual diversion of direct democracy away from its democratic intentions came in the 1930s, with the rise of California’s so-called “initiative industry.”This is a California shorthand expression for political campaign consultants who can gather signatures to qualify virtually any ballot measure and who can craft advertising and mass mailings to get the measure passed – for a very high fee. By relying on such campaign consultants, large corporations with ample funds – money that once might have been spent on lobbying and campaign contributions – can bypass the politicians in the legislature and translate their economic clout directly into political outcomes. Investing in direct democracy does not always pay off, but apparently wealthy interests with ample funds are always willing to give it a try. This pattern became clear in the 1930s, when corporations and trade associations relying on the “initiative industry” began spending millions of dollars to gather signatures, buy advertising, and send out mass mailings in order to promote ballot measures that might increase their profits – or to defeat ballot measures that threatened to reduce their profits. Either way, the rise of the “initiative industry” and the commercialization of direct democracy was definitely not what the progressives had in mind.42

43 Carey McWilliams, “Government by Whitaker and Baxter,”series in The Nation 172 (April 14, 1951): 3 (...)

44 Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor, and How I Got Licked, ed. James N. Gregory (Berkeley: Un (...)

45 Helen Woodward, “How to Swing an Election,” The Nation 145 (Dec. 11, 1937): 638-640; Godfrey Montag (...)

46 James E. Hartley, Steven M. Sheffrin, and J. David Vashe, “Reform During Crisis: The Transformation (...)

47 John C. Lee and Ralph F. Shawhan, “California Votes on Utopia,” Saturday Evening Post 211 (November (...)

18 The first California consulting firm to specialize in direct democracy campaigns on behalf of wealthy interests was the husband and wife team ofWhitaker and Baxter, also known as “Campaigns, Inc.”43 Their clients were usually corporations, trade associations, and other business groups impressed by Whitaker and Baxter’s devastatingly successful campaign against Upton Sinclair, the radical socialist Democratic candidate for governor in 1934. California’s biggest banks, utilities, newspapers, radio stations, and movie studios spent at least a million dollars to defeat Sinclair in what some historians consider “the birth of media politics” with a decidedly negative tinge.44 Two years later, national retailers led by Woolworth’s and Safeway hired Whitaker and Baxter to craft a successful referendum that repealed a statewide tax onchain stores.It was the first million-dollar direct democracy campaign, funded by big national corporations, and it struck a blow against small local retailers, whom legislators had tried to protect with the chain store tax.45 Also in 1936, California voters were offered a chance to repeal the state income tax and to require a two-thirds majority vote for any future income tax, but this initiative lost. The attempt to constrain the state’s power to tax the wealthy foreshadowed many later initiatives, but California voters did not fall for it in the depths of the Great Depression.46 In 1938, they rejected a pair of hard-fought initiatives that drew heavy spending on both sides. One measure would have severely restricted labor union activities in California, and the other, known as “Ham and Eggs,” would have created a state pension for elderly residents. Business groups tried to pass the anti-labor initiative and defeat “Ham and Eggs,” but they were only half successful: both measures lost. This was an early sign that heavy spending in direct democracy elections is most effective on the negative side. “Ham and Eggs” pension proposals made it onto California ballots for a few more years, but business opposition helped to defeat or neutralize them all.47 It was at this point in 1939 that the first comprehensive study of California’s initiative process by political scientists appeared, with this startling conclusion:

48 Key and Crouch, Initiative and Referendum in California, 565, 572. See also Edwin A. Cottrell, “Twe (...)

“The history of direct legislation shows a marked change in the character of the groups utilizing the initiative. It appears that now well-financed interest-groups initiate measures more frequently than do . . . reform groups. . . .Initiative measures do not originate with ‘The People.’ The moving forces in politics are relatively small groups of men animated by some ‘interest’. . . to promote legislation of value . . . to their group.”48

49 Magleby, Direct Legislation, 45-46; Center for Governmental Studies, Democracy by Initiative: Shapi (...)

50 McFadden v. Jordan, 32 Cal. 2d 330 (1948); Anne G. Campbell, “In the Eye of the Beholder: The Singl (...)

19Direct democracy was supposed to help the “People” against the “Interests”; instead, it usually worked the other way around. However, this dispiriting trend slowed down in the next few decades, as the overall use of direct democracy declined. Californians voted on thirty-two initiatives in the 1930s, but only twenty in the 1940s, twelve in the 1950s, and just nine in the 1960s. Not a single referendum qualified for the ballot for thirty years after 1952. Probably the main reason for the decline of direct democracy in these years was California’s exploding population, which caused the total number of ballots cast in each election to soar into the millions, jacking up the threshold of signatures required to place measures on the ballot. There were also new restrictions on the gathering of signatures: direct democracy petitions originally could circulate for unlimited periods of time, but this was reduced to two years in 1943, and then to just 150 days in 1973.49A key ruling by the state Supreme Court, McFadden v. Jordan (1948), banned initiatives that qualified as constitutional “revisions” rather than a constitutional “amendments.” Ever since 1948, the McFadden rule has banned the use of initiatives for sweeping, fundamental changes of the California constitution that would normally require a constitutional convention or action by the legislature. Initiatives can only be used to amend, not revise, the constitution – and only courts can tell the difference. Also since 1948, any initiative must restrict itself to a single subject; no initiative is allowed to lump together a bundle of omnibus reforms in a single package. This rule, too, is subject to judicial interpretation and frequently requires litigation.50

51 Pitchell, “The Influence of Professional Campaign Management Firms,” 287; Daniel A. Smith, “Campaig (...)

52 Wallace Turner, “Rightists in the West Fight Housing Act,” New York Times, May 10, 1964; Thomas Cas (...)

53 Frank Levy, “On Understanding Proposition 13,” The Public Interest 56 (Summer 1979): 66-89; Clarenc (...)

54 Ibid.,135-139; “Nuclear Power Plants,” California Journal 7 (May 1976): 6-8; “A Question of Power,” (...)

20 Despite the declining use of direct democracy in the postwar era, wealthy business interests in California continued to rely on it. In 1956, oil companies spent millions on an initiative that would have loosened state regulation of their industry, but it was called the “Oil and Gas Conservation Act,” which seemed to confuse voters, so the measure failed.51 In 1964, California landlords, realtors, and real estate investors spent even more heavily on an initiative that would allow racial discrimination in housing. The measure was denounced as clearly racist by liberals and civil rights groups, but they never stood a chance against the real estate industry juggernaut that outspent them nearly ten to one. Courts ultimately struck down this initiative despite its popularity with California’s white majority, most of whom had voted to protect their right to practice racial discrimination.52 Thereafter a variety of tax limitation measuresof the sort that would later become familiar appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but all of them were rejected. Business groups were divided on these measures because they seemed to invite fiscal chaos; apparently, this was not yet seen as a desirable condition to inflict on California state government.53Environmentalist groupswere able to pass some initiatives in the 1970s to protect California’s incomparable heritage of natural beauty from pollution and development, but business interests thwarted several more such measures by spending heavily against them. For example, in 1976, anti-nuclear activists placed an initiative on the ballot that would have banned nuclear power plants in California. In response, the nuclear power industry spent millions to convince California voters that nuclear power was perfectly safe. The anti-nuclear initiative went down to defeat – but less than two years later, after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania, some Californians may have wished to change their votes.54

55 Robert Kuttner, Revolt of the Haves: Tax Rebellions and Hard Times (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1 (...)

56 Magleby, Direct Legislation, 145-151; Cronin, Direct Democracy, 99-123; Daniel H. Lowenstein, “Camp (...)

57 Citizens for Jobs and Energy v. FPPC, 16 Cal 3d 671 (1976); Elizabeth Garrett and Elisabeth R. Gerb (...)

The evolution of direct democracy from a progressive standby into a tool of wealthy interests culminated in Proposition 13 in 1978. This measure was packaged and sold to California voters as tax relief for average homeowners, when it fact it mostly benefited big landlords and investors in commercial real estate who put up the money behind it.55 Observers of California politics recognize that direct democracy has changed significantly following Proposition 13. The number of ballot initiatives has risen sharply since the late 1970s – and so has the amount of money spent on campaigns. Wealthy special interests ranging from casino owners and lottery consultants to the insurance and tobacco industries have willingly invested millions in initiatives that promise to deliver billions in profits. The gamble does not always pay off: studies of direct democracy show that the side spending the most money in the election does not always win – but it usually does. Heavy spending is especially effective on the negative side which can neutralize those rare few progressive-style measures on behalf of workers, consumers, small business, minorities, or the environment that do occasionally make it onto the ballot.56 Campaign spending for and against ballot propositions is loosely regulated by the California Political Reform Act of 1974, which originally tried to limit such spending – but those limits were removed just two years later, following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Buckley v. Valeo (1976) which equated campaign spending with free speech. Money raised and spent in California to support or oppose ballot propositions has to be reported, but it has no limits, and in any case the final report of campaign expenditures does not appear until a month after the election, which deprives voters of access to this information until it is too late to matter. Spending on direct democracy campaigns in recent years has sometimes topped tens of millions of dollars per proposition and is rising fast.57

58 Elisabeth R. Gerber, The Populist Paradox: Interest Group Influence and the Promise of Direct Democ (...)

59 For discussion and examples, see Peter Schrag, Paradise Lost: California’s Experience, America’s Fu (...)

Unlimited campaign spending on direct democracy, combined with the high cost of gathering the hundreds of thousands of signatures now needed to qualify measures for the ballot, virtually guarantees that only well-funded interests are able to sponsor such measures – or block those they oppose. Hence California’s progressive heritage of direct democracy has fallen prey to what scholars now call the “populist paradox”: a reform that was supposed to help the people reduce the power of wealthy special interests is now a tool of those interests, which they use for distinctly un-progressive purposes.58 Perhaps part of the problem is the failure of Governor Johnson and his comrades back in 1911 to foresee the rise of electronic mass media, which has enabled wealthy interests to exert more influence on public opinion than the progressives ever could have imagined by blanketing the airwaves with clever, often deceptive advertising that is expensive to produce and even more expensive to disseminate. This is how direct democracy enables those with enough money to exert a strong and grossly disproportionate effect on public policy in California.59 The irony is that corporations and business groups opposed direct democracy in 1911 – but once it passed, they learned how to exploit it for their own ends, while progressives are left wondering if it is even possible to reform the system without betraying its democratic original intent.

23 Once upon a time in California, corporations bribed legislators in order to obtain desired legislation; now they can skip the middleman and go directly to the voters. A substantial investment in gathering signatures and buying airtime can usually persuade – or deceive – enough voters into going along with whatever legislation those who foot the bill want passed. The point is not that money controls direct democracy, because it does not: spending millions on a proposition is no guarantee of success. It does, however, cost over two million dollars just to gather enough signatures within the allotted time in order to place a proposition on the ballot in the first place. Anyone without that kind of cash is priced out of direct democracy, while anyone with that much cash lying around can force a vote on anything – and spend any amount of money to get it passed. Rather than purge the influence of organized wealth from California politics, direct democracy seems instead to have rendered it more sophisticated, more respectable, more insidious, and perfectly legal. Sadly, if Hiram Johnson were alive today to see what has become of his beloved direct democracy, it would probably kill him.

direct democ: Origin of the species

From Athens via Switzerland to the Wild West

Apr 20th 2011 | From the print edition

ONE HUNDRED YEARS ago Hiram Johnson, one of the most consequential governors in California's history, called a special election. Johnson was a leader of a movement called Progressivism that reacted to America's industrialisation by demanding women's suffrage, direct election of United States senators (originally chosen by state legislatures) and other expansions of democracy. In this Californian election voters had to decide on three new types of balloting: referendums, recalls and initiatives. They accepted them all with enthusiasm.

And thus, in October 1911, California adopted the three tools of modern direct democracy. It was not the first state to do so. South Dakota had adopted initiatives in 1898, and Utah, Oregon, Montana, Oklahoma and other states had begun mixing their own cocktails of direct democracy from the three ingredients. Referendums, in which voters approve or reject laws already passed by a legislature, were the least radical change. Recalls, in which voters remove elected representatives and even judges in mid-term, seemed more adventurous.

Voters had to decide on three new types of balloting: referendums, recalls and initiatives. They accepted them all with enthusiasm

But initiatives (called “propositions” in California once they are listed on an actual ballot) had the most potential to turn politics upside down. They turn voters into legislators, since a successful initiative becomes statute. In states like California, initiatives can even turn voters into founding fathers who amend the state constitution. There are worlds of nuance in the detail. The package that California chose was especially powerful.

[ related: The people's will

Origin of the species

War by initiative

Stateside and abroad

The withering branch

A lesson in mediocrity

What do you know?

Burn the wagons]

Californians thus explicitly chose a path that diverged from the one America's founders had taken. To understand California's problems today, you need to know what tradition California departed from. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and their peers, as they met for the constitutional convention in Philadelphia in 1787, had deliberately rejected direct democracy. So why did Californians second-guess them?

Deeply versed in the classics, the founders had seen ancient Athens as the main historical example of direct democracy. In that city every male adult citizen voted in the assembly and there were no distinct executive or judicial branches. But this was also the Athens that condemned Socrates to death, rashly launched a disastrous pre-emptive war against Syracuse and barely survived repeated oligarchic coups before succumbing to undemocratic Macedonia.

Greek thinkers such as Aristotle and Polybius concluded that democracy was inherently unstable because it led to mob rule(in the same way that monarchy deteriorated into tyranny and aristocracy into oligarchy). Those three elements, monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, thus had to be balanced for a state to remain free, they argued. Rome (before the emperors) became the prime example of such a mixture. It was a republic, a “public thing”, but not a democracy, a thing “ruled by the people”. It had executives (in the shape of two annually elected consuls), an elite in the senate, and outlets for the vox populi in the popular assemblies.

To this Roman ideal of republicanism the thinkers of the Enlightenment added more liberal notions of freedom. John Locke injected a rather English emphasis on property and individualism. France's Baron de Montesquieu, a huge influence on America's founders, celebrated the commercial aspects of liberty. He also spelled out the separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches.

Against this intellectual backdrop, much of the famous debate that took place in 1787 and 1788, as the states had to ratify the proposed new constitution, was about how indirect America's democracy should be. Both sides showed fealty to the historical ideal by writing under Roman pen names. Madison, Hamilton and John Jay, in the Federalist Papers, wrote as Publius, one of republican Rome's first consuls. The Anti-Federalists opposing the constitution wrote as Brutus, the other consul, or as Cato.

The Anti-Federalists made a populist case for a direct democracy in which citizens participated actively, says Thomas Pangle, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. The Federalists considered this view naive and dangerous. The society they envisioned was to be large, diverse and commercial. Madison, in particular, worried that a majority might oppress minorities, and that elected representatives might legislate out of “passion”.

Above all, Madison understood that a large and diverse nation would necessarily have many antagonistic “minority factions”, or special interests in today's language. He wanted to contain these interests safely within a republican structure. Yes, they should have representation. But they should all compete against one another in the House of Representatives. The resulting laws would then be filtered through the Senate and the two other branches. As George Washington memorably told Thomas Jefferson, this was to “cool” House legislation as a saucer cools hot tea.

The Federalists won the debate, and America's constitution (though much amended) remains the most durable in existence today. It balances not only minority factions, as well as populism and elitism, but also the federal and state governments. This is why, in the 19th century, Switzerland took an interest in it.

Switzerland after the Napoleonic wars faced a situation quite similar to America's a generation earlier. Several independent states (cantons) needed to band together in a stable confederation that preserved both unity and diversity, and thus freedom. After a small but traumatic civil war between Protestant and Catholic cantons the Swiss decided in 1848 to import America's constitution almost wholesale.

But Switzerland already had its own tradition of democracy. Starting in the 14th century, farmers in the Alpine valleys had formed assemblies not unlike those in ancient Athens in which all men made laws. They also sent delegates to co-ordinate policy (building a road, say) with farmers in other valleys. Such agreements had “to be carried back”, ad referendum in Latin, for approval in the assembly.

The Swiss grafted this tradition of direct democracy onto their American-style federal constitution. For the first time in history, initiatives and referendums thus became a regular part of national, as opposed to local, governance. But the details of this Swiss system were designed to serve its cultural and political purpose. As Corina Casanova, Switzerland's federal chancellor, puts it, “we strive to solve conflicts through consensus and compromise.” Direct democracy aids, rather than hinders, that.

Any amendment to the Swiss constitution, for example, requires a referendum. But it also needs a simple majority of the cantons in the legislature. So just over half the cantons, which might represent a minority of Swiss voters, can overrule the majority in a referendum, thus addressing Madison's worry about majoritarian tyranny. The proposed amendment then goes back to the legislature for redrafting—ie, for Washington's “cooling”.

The same applies to initiatives. Citizens may launch one, but the legislature then has the option to draft a counter-proposal. Long before any voting, two or more drafts of legislation circulate, all trying to address the same problem. “In practical terms this means that behind the scenes, initiative committees and the authorities engage in a process of bargaining,” says Ms Casanova. “This leaves no room for extreme solutions, only well-balanced solutions backed by all.”

If the legislature presents a good alternative, sponsors may withdraw their initiatives, and many do. This drawn-out vetting process prevents conflicting initiatives as the various committees iron out legal and logical wrinkles. Much as Madison envisioned, the various special interests in Switzerland must eventually find common ground in what Ms Casanova calls an “institutionalised search for compromise”.

This was not, however, what attracted America's Progressives to the Swiss model.John Randolph Haynes, a Californian doctor, founded a “direct-legislation league” after a trip to Switzerland. Nicknamed “Recall John”, he brought city-wide direct democracy to Los Angeles in 1903. He then joined William Rappard, a Swiss academic and diplomat who was teaching at Harvard at the time, and others, including Hiram Johnson, to extend the system to the whole state.

Unlike the Swiss, these Californian reformers had in mind a specific enemy, against which direct democracy seemed the ideal weapon. California was no Switzerland: much of it was still empty, geographically isolated and an institutional vacuum. Into this vacuum had stepped a private power: the railroad.

Blame it on the Southern Pacific Railroad

Founded in 1861 as the Central Pacific and later renamed the Southern Pacific, it was soon known as “the Octopus” because its tentacles corrupted every part of the state. The Southern Pacific bribed and cajoled legislators, judges, journalists and mayors. At one point one of its founders, Leland Stanford, was governor. He appointed a co-founder's brother, who was also the railroad's chief counsel, to the state's Supreme Court.

As one reporter wrote in 1896, “it didn't matter whether a man was a Republican or Democrat. The Southern Pacific Railroad controlled both parties, and he either had to stay out of the game altogether or play it with the railroad.” This was the corruption that enraged California's Progressives.Hiram Johnsonwas especially livid. He had begun as a fisticuffs prosecutor in bribery and graft trials where he won the fame that launched him into politics.}:

From the start, Californian direct democracy thus had the opposite social purpose of its Swiss mother. As Ms Casanova says, the Californian system was designed to be “confrontational”. For example, it is quite difficult for petitioners to call a referendum, which merely passes judgment on a decision by elected representatives. But it is easy to launch an initiative, which circumvents the legislature by letting citizens make law.

California is also unique, in America and the world, in treating every successful initiative as irreversible (unless the initiative itself says otherwise). The legislature cannot change it. In effect, this makes initiatives a higher class of law. In California they often amend the constitution. And whereas Switzerland ensures that different initiatives are mutually compatible, California makes no such effort. A single ballot can contain directly contradictory initiatives, in which case the one with the most yes votes wins.

Direct democracy in California is thus an aberration. It has no safeguards against Madison's tyranny of the majority. It recognises no saucer that might cool the passions of the people. Above all, it is not a system intended to contain minority factions.Instead, it encourages special interests to wage war by ballot measure until one lobby prevails and imposes its will on all. Madison and Hamilton would have been horrified.

But in 1911 none of this was yet clear. The system had the potential to be coercive, but its actual effect would depend on context and usage. Indeed, the number of ballot measures, once the novelty wore off, declined and stayed low as the Southern Pacific's power faded naturally. For decades, immigrants populated the state, and most problems seemed to take care of themselves.But all this changed abruptly in 1978, with an unprecedented initiative that shapes the state to this day: Proposition 13.

Why Did California Adopt the Recall?

by Joshua Spivak

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/1682

https://webbrain.com/brainpage/brain/6950F840-FB80-FCB0-D505-8AB1FA685F08#-1395

hiram j progressive

However many of these important measures are in trouble in the U.S. California’s landmark legislation is now officially on hold,

gma padilla

http://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-pc-california-plastic-bag-ban-20150223-story.html

with a referendum to repeal the ban added to the ballot for November 2016. Florida and Arizona have both already passed bills making the banning ofplastic bags illegal. Powerful and large special interest lobbying groups are behind these “ban bans” as well as litigation aimed at already existing bans. Outside interests are funding these efforts to dissuade and dismantle local level legislation. Primary among them is the Progressive Bag Affiliates, funded by the largest plastic bag manufacturers in the country and the American Chemistry Council.

===

The initiative and referendum are available at the state level and in every city. The state-level initiative and referendum were adopted in 1911. San Francisco and Vallejo were the first cities to adopt the initiative in 1898, and California counties were given initiative rights in 1893.

Progressive-era Governor Hiram Johnson is well known for leading the successful fight for direct democracy in the Golden State, the critical groundwork laid by Dr. John Randolph Haynes may have been as important. A Philadelphian who held doctorates in both medicine and philosophy, Haynes moved west to Los Angeles in 1887, at the age of 34. He established a successful medical practice, counting many prominent Southern Californians among his patients, invested his profits skillfully in real estate, and eventually became a millionaire.

In 1895 Haynes helped found the California Direct Legislation League, dedicated to winning the rights of initiative, referendum, and recall statewide and in every local jurisdiction. He won election in 1900 to a Los Angeles "board of freeholders" responsible for drafting a new charter for the city. Haynes used this strategic position to ensure that the board included I&R in the new charter, only to see the entire charter thrown out by the courts on a technicality.

A new board, without Haynes, was elected in 1902, but he continued to advocate I&R and brought Eltweed Pomeroy of New Jersey, president of the National Direct Legislation League, from the East Coast specifically to address the board. After Pomeroy's speech, the board voted to include initiative, referendum, and recall in the new charter. Voters ratified the charter in 1903.

Haynes then concentrated his efforts on winning statewide I&R. The odds against him were daunting. The entire state government had for decades been under the control of theSouthern Pacific Railroad. Bribery was the accepted method of doing business in the state capitol. Realizing the hopelessness of dealing with the current officeholders, Haynes and other reformers began a campaign to get rid of them and remake state government from top to bottom. In May 1907 they founded the Lincoln-Roosevelt League of Republican Clubs, and elected several of their candidates to the legislature. These legislators worked for a bill to require the nomination of party candidates through primary election rather than state party conventions. The bill passed, and the League's 1910 gubernatorial candidate, Hiram Johnson, ran in the state's first primary election. Johnson won the primary and the general election and swept dozens of other reformers into the legislature on his political coattails.

Johnson and the new Progressive majority in the legislature sweeping changes in the state's government. Among these were adoption of the initiative, referendum, and recall at both the state and local levels. Voters ratified these amendments in a special election on October 10, 1911.

Reformers in Los Angeles won voter approval, in December 1911, of a unique local initiative to create a municipally owned, yet editorially independent, newspaper to compete with the anti-labor, anti-reform Los Angeles Times and provide unbiased news and an equal forum for all political views. Each political party was given a column in every weekly edition. This bold experiment in free speech attracted the state's top newspaper talent and got off to a highly successful start. After less than a year, however, it failed because of the harassment of vendors and an advertiser boycott organized by the Los Angeles reformers' arch-enemy, Harrison Gray Otis, owner of the Times.

The first significant statewide initiative in California abolished the poll tax in 1914, and a construction bond initiative for the University of California also won voter approval that year. Immediately thereafter, anti-initiative forces launched their first counterattack, in the form of a constitutional amendment passed by the legislature to make it more difficult to pass initiative bond proposals. Haynes mobilized his pro-initiative forces and defeated the amendment at the polls in 1915.

Anti-initiative forces tried again in 1920, this time using the initiative process themselves to propose a measure that would have made it virtually impossible to put any tax-related initiatives on future ballots. Haynes mobilized his forces again and defeated the measure at the polls; and he won a third, similar contest in 1922. After this he changed the name of his California Direct Legislation League to "The League to Protect the Initiative," and for the rest of his life kept close watch over the legislature to make sure that it enacted no laws to restrict I&R procedures. Haynes died on October 30, 1937, at the age of 84.

On the ballot in 1934 were four successful constitutional initiatives to revamp the state's law enforcement and criminal justice systems. All four were sponsored by Alameda County District Attorney Earl Warren, who went on to become the state's attorney general in 1938, its governor in 1942, and the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1953. The principal changes involved procedures for judicial selection and retention, and increasing the woefully inadequate powers and jurisdiction of the office of attorney general. Warren's foresight in revamping the justice system before running for attorney general accounted in no small measure for his effectiveness once elected, which in turn made possible his rise to higher office.

One of the highest stakes initiative campaigns, in terms of campaign spending was the 1956 struggle over changes in the state regulation and taxation of oil and gas production. The initiative was sponsored by one group of oil companiesthat sought to make their business more profitable, and opposed by another group of oil firms that preferred the existing system. Campaign funds spent by both sides totaled over $5 million. The 1956 initiative lost: California voters, inundated with conflicting claims about a complex measure, took the cautious route and voted "no."

Almost as expensive was the gargantuan 1958 labor-capital conflict over a "Right to Work" (open shop) initiative sponsored by employers. This battle ended in a double defeat for employers: not only did voters decisively reject the initiative, but the opposition campaign mobilized Democrats and union members to vote in droves, resulting in the election of Governor Edmund G. Brown, Sr., the first Democrat to occupy that office in 16 years.

In the 1960s, California liberals soured on the initiative process as a result of two measures passed by voters in 1964. The first repealed the Rumford Fair Housing Act, which the legislature had passed, and Governor Brown had signed, in 1963. The second banned cable television. That measure was sponsored by theater owners who, fearing competition, advertised the initiative as guaranteeing "free television" and eliminating the specter of "pay television." Both 1964 initiatives were later overturned by the courts as unconstitutional.

The California initiative process gave rise to a new breed of campaign professional: the paid petition circulator. With signature requirements doubling nearly every decade, citizen groups were unable to rely solely on volunteer effort. As early as World War I, Joseph Robinson was offering his organizing services to initiative proponents. His firm, which paid its employees a fee for each signature brought in, had a virtual monopoly on the petition business from 1920 to 1948 - a period during which, Robinson estimated, his firm was involved in 98 percent of the successful statewide initiative petition drives. Robinson stayed in business into the late 1960s, when he offered his services to Ed and Joyce Koupal, but by then he had competitors.

California's most famous initiative was Proposition 13, approved by voter in 1978. Proposition 13 capped property taxes at 1 percent of value and limited assessment increases. It sparked a so-called tax-revolt across the country that ran for almost a decade, and also led to a revival in initiative use across the country as citizens increasingly turned to the initiative process to gain a greater control over their lives.

In recent decades, Californian has led the nation in high profile initiatives. California initiatives have allowed voters to express their views on wide variety of important social, economic, and governmental issues including term limits, bilingual education, racial preferences/affirmative action, medical marijuana, punishment for crimes, taxes, government debt, and same-sex marriage. Elected officials in other parts of the country sometimes vilify the initiative process by saying, “we don’t want to be like California.” Despite the view from outside (and in some cases inside) the state that the initiative process has been a problem for state government, the process remains overwhelmingly popular among the electorate. Defenders note as well that California is not the only state to face economic and fiscal problems, and that many of the problematic policies were passed by the legislature not by initiatives.

colo frack2014 aug

The initiatives would have forced fracking wells to be 2,000 feet from schools, hospitals and other community facilities, and established an environmental bill of rights allowing local governments precedence when laws conflict with the state. In exchange for pulling the controversial ballot measures, a commission will be set up to analyze whatever problems might exist.

“We are disappointed that Colorado’s environmental rights ballot initiative that would have allowed local governments to protect their citizens from the potential harms of oil and gas drilling has been withdrawn,” said Earthworks Oil & Gas Accountability Project director Bruce Baizel.

“Colorado’s oil and gas oversight favors the oil and gas industry’s interests before the public interest. That’s why hundreds of thousands of Coloradoans backed ballot initiatives to fundamentally change oil and gas regulation for the better this November.”

The fracking commission announced today by Governor Hickenlooper and Representative Polis provides a possibility that Colorado’s community and environment may yet be protected from the environmental and health threats associated with oil and gas development. Impacted communities must have a real seat at the table, and must be allowed to determine that in some cases no fracking may be the right choice.”

According to Colorado’s KDVR News, Polis negotiated with Hickenlooper and “reached an agreement over the weekend to stand down on the initiatives and allow a broader stakeholder process to take place.”

“This hollow compromise may remove fracking from the state ballot this November, but it doesn’t solve any problems,” said Sam Schabacker, western region director with Food & Water Watch. “It creates an unelected task force and guarantees that concern among voters about fracking will continue to escalate, and that fracking will continue to be a significant statewide issue our officials must address.”

According to The Hill, the measures created a rift among Colorado Democrats in recent months and threatened to hurt Sen. Mark Udall and Gov. John Hickenlooper in their reelection bids.

You Might Also Like

Fracking Waste Puts Americans’ Drinking Water at Risk

How Fracking Changed the World

Fracking Makes California’s Drought Worse

2012:

The Center to Protect Patients' Rights (CPPR) is a secretive nonprofit group organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code that funneled nearly $55 million to a variety of other front groups that attacked Democrats in the 2010 elections. ^[1] In 2012, the group's role as a part of an $11 million campaign money laundering shell game was revealed after the California Fair Practices Commission filed suitagainst one of its donors and recipients, Americans for Responsible Leadership.^[2]

Koch Ties

According to CPPR's 2009 and 2010 tax filings, the group is run by Sean Noble, who Politico has described as a "Koch operative." ^[3] Noble was part of a group of GOP operatives who met regularly with Karl Rove’s American Crossroads to target 120 House of Representatives races in 2010. ^[3] Noble was hired by the Kochs to coordinate with other conservative Super PACs to target Democratic representatives in 2010. ^[4] Other individuals associated with the group also have Koch ties. Consultant Cheryl Hillen has raised at least $2.6 million for the organization and was formerly director of fundraising for the Koch Brothers-backed Citizens for a Sound Economy (which later split into Americans for Prosperity and Freedomworks). One of CPPR's original directors, Heather Higgins, is chairwoman of the Independent Women's Forum, a climate change denialist group that has received Koch money and was previously run by a Koch lobbyist.^[5]

2012

In 2012, CPPR came under scrutiny during an investigation of a "campaign money laundering"^[2] shell game. The Arizona-based 501(c)(4) Americans for Responsible Leadership (ARL) made an $11 million donation to the Small Business Action Committee PAC in California, which spent those funds to oppose Proposition 30 (which would raise taxes) and Proposition 32 (which would prohibit labor unions from raising money for political activities through employees' voluntary payroll deductions).^[6] California's elections board did not buy ARL's claim that its donors had given $11 million for reasons other than funding ads to influence these ballot issues and demanded it reveal its funders.^[7] ARL spent $11 million on ballot initiatives through a donation of that sum to the Small Business Action Committee PAC (SBAC) in October 2012.^[8]

After initial resistance, ARL revealed that it had received $11 million in contributions for the purpose of funding ballot initiatives from another dark money nonprofit, Americans for Job Security(AJS), a group that received its funding from none other than the CPPR. According to the California Fair Political Practices Commission, "Under California law, the failure to disclose this initially was campaignmoney laundering."^[2]The group not only gets funding from CPPR, but is housed in the same offices as Karl Rove's American Crossroads SuperPAC.^[9]

While in 2010, CPPR gave $4.8 million to AJS, a sum that was used on anti-Democrat attack ads, in 2012, AJS gave $11 million to CPPR, which gave the money to ARL. ARL then passed the $11 million to the SBAC, indicating that some of the money flow between the organizations has been reversed.^[9] The money seems to have moved from one group to another in the span of a few days.^[8]

===

http://articles.latimes.com/print/2003/jul/13/local/me-history13 hist of recall

Recall Idea Got Its Start in L.A. in 1898

July 13, 2003|Matea Gold | Times Staff Writer

The year was 1910, and the Southern Pacific Railroad had a lock on California's political institutions.Disgusted with graft and corruption, a little-known San Francisco prosecutor rode a wave of public discontent into the governor's office, promising to release the state from the hold of powerful companies and their political allies.

In his inaugural speech the following January, newly elected Gov. Hiram Johnson argued for the adoption of a statewide recall measure, saying citizens should have the power to throw out "a recalcitrant official."

Nearly a century later, California is headed for its first gubernatorial recall election, and once-arcane constitutional provisions -- from whether the governor can run to succeed himself to whether he can be reimbursed for the campaign from the state treasury if he prevails -- suddenly have become the focus of more than academic interest.

Last week, proponents of a recall of Gov. Gray Davis said they had gathered enough signatures to put the issue to a vote, and Davis advisors have conceded that an election appears likely, as soon as this fall.

Each side in the Davis recall debate says history supports its approach.

Recall supporters say Davis has fallen under the control of large political donors and other interests, and that the recall is being used as intended: to let the people of California clean house.

The recall was created in "reaction to special interests controlling the Legislature in that era," said Dave Gilliard, a political strategist hired by millionaire Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), who funded the recall drive and is a candidate to replace Davis. "Because the governor has sold his political soul to various groups -- mostly public employee labor unions -- our state budget has been put so far out of balance there's almost no light at the end of the tunnel," Gilliard added.

Davis backers counter that the recall distorts the intent of the Progressives who wanted to give average citizens a way to remove a corrupt leader.

"The recall mechanism was designed to be able to take care of problems that arise when a leader has committed some gross malfeasance," said Roger Salazar, a Democratic consultant advising Davis. "What we have here is essentially a manipulation of the existing process by a multimillionaire who is bent on buying himself a seat in the governor's office."

Larry Gerston, a political science professor at San Jose State, agreed that the current campaign little resembles the one that Hiram Johnson and his allies might have envisioned.

"If the Progressives were here," Gerston said, "they would be rolling in their graves."

When the recall was born, the Southern Pacific Railroad controlled a powerful political machine known as "the Octopus" that held sway over state and local governments, as well as the judiciary.

In an attempt to keep its monopoly and control shipping rates, the railroad bribed state legislators, offering them free passes and hotel rooms. And the railroad effectively chose nominees for office, including the 1906 Republican candidate for governor.

Reacting to public outrage over the widespread corruption, a Los Angeles physician namedJohn Randolph Haynes proposed in 1898 a recall measure as part of a trio of city reforms designed to rid the political process of corruption and restore power to the citizens.

"He looked at it as a kind of remedy, for once you established someone was corrupt, there would be a way to get them out of office," said Tom Sitton, author of "John Randolph Haynes: California Progressive."

From his seat on a citizens board elected to reform the City Charter, Haynes worked for the establishment of initiative and referendum mechanisms in local government to give more power to the public. In a draft of the new charter, he also slipped in the recall, then a relatively unknown and radical idea.

In October 1900, the Los Angeles Herald described the concept to readers: "The supporters of the innovation point out that there is now no way in which the people themselves can secure the removal of any official before the expiration of his time, no matter how bad his record might be."

Haynes was then the family physician and personal friend of Harrison Gray Otis, the conservative owner of the Los Angeles Times, which called the three-pronged reform package "the most salient feature of the proposed new charter."

The City Council approved the measures for the ballot, apparently viewing the recall as a "whimsical notion which both the politicians and the serious-minded voters could be trusted to suppress," according to "The Recall of Public Officials," a 1930 book detailing the history of the recall written by two political science professors at Occidental College.

Los Angeles voters eventually approved the new City Charter, backing the recall by a ratio of 4 to 1, and after the Legislature ratified it on Jan. 22, 1903, Los Angeles became the first city in the United States to adopt the recall.

The new measure was quickly put to the test. In 1904, labor unions organized the successful recall of a city councilman who had voted to give a city printing contract to The Times, even though other newspapers had submitted substantially lower bids.

The Times quickly changed its view of the recall, calling it "freak legislation" that was "conceived in rottenness."

But in the next seven years, 25 other California cities adopted similar measures.

"The mood at the time was, there's corruption everywhere, and when we see corruption we must root it out," said Gerston of San Jose State.

Johnson, the future governor, came to fame as part of a Progressive crusade against machine politics in San Francisco. When an assistant district attorney was shot during a trial of the city's political boss for extortion, Johnson, a 42-year-old labor lawyer, successfully took over the case.

In 1910, the Progressives recruited Johnson to run for governor, and he stumped around the state for months in a crimson steam powerred] Locomobile promising to "kick the Southern Pacific out of politics in California."

In his inauguration speech on Jan. 3, 1911, the new Republican governor called for the state to implement the reforms that Haynes had introduced in Los Angeles. "While I do not by any means believe the initiative, the referendum and the recall are the panacea for all our political ills," Johnson said, "yet they do give to the electorate the power of action when desired, and they do place in the hands of the people the means by which they may protect themselves."

On Oct. 10, 1911, California voters agreed with him, approving the recall overwhelmingly.

"He had faith in the people, and the people's ability once made aware of the truth," said Richard Coke Lower, author of "A Bloc of One: The Political Career of Hiram W. Johnson." The recall was "a response to the conditions of the time and the charges that the people lacked any real involvement."

Over the years, there have been various amendments, and the Constitution now spells out everything from when the lieutenant governor has to call a special election after the petitions are certified (within 60 to 80 days, unless there's a state election already scheduled within 180 days) to who is subject to campaign finance limits (candidates, but not the incumbent fighting the recall).

The target of the recall cannot run to succeed himself, and if he resigns before the election is held, the recall goes forward. The lieutenant governor would temporarily run the state only until there was a winner of the recall (whoever gets the most votes). If the target of the recall prevails, however, he is entitled to ask the state for reimbursement for all campaign and legal expenses.

After the initial measure passed in 1911, some of the most ardent proponents of the new measure, including Haynes, acknowledged that it was not perfect.

"He expected that it was a very well-informed citizenry that would use it," said Sitton, a curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.

"Soon after it passed, Dr. Haynes had to admit that it could very easily be used for the wrong purposes," Sitton added.

In one of its first applications, state Sen. Edwin Grant was recalled in 1913 for opposing prostitution, which had angered constituents of the red-light district he represented in San Francisco. Since then, only three other state officials have been recalled in California despite 117 attempts.

There have been 31 efforts to recall a California governor, including an attempt to replace then-Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1968, but none of them qualified for the ballot.

Initiatives in California in recent years rarely have been handled with the populist spirit that Haynes and others envisioned.

They have become a regular fact of the state's political life, employed by groups that can afford to pay signature gatherers, often in pursuit of legislation that favors their industries or interests.

Summary: this is a more or less chronological response to the development of the California electricity crisis in 2001, in which the evidence that the shortage is being artificially created by the generating companies gradually mounts. The most important thing I discovered early on is simply that our usage is down significantly from before the crisis. Any claims that we have really outgrown our system's capacity are lies. The problem, I believe, is that the artificial pricing rules under "deregulation" essentially don't really allow generating companies to underprice each other. Hence there is no competition.

When I started this page, I never expected to encounter the level of corruption that the story below brings out...

Here are some shortcut links to the more important findings along the way:

- January: half of PG&E is losing money, the other half is making tons of it

- usage during early blackouts was **lower than it was a year earlier**

- SoCalEd admits high prices not caused by insufficient supply

- April: PG&E demands immunity from losing money as generator industry airs lies in radio ads

- Dick Cheney claims conservation is pointless and doesn't help

- public officials finally make open accusations of holding back power to drive up prices

- graph of gigantic growth in **generating capacity kept idle**

- June: first drop in prices as countermeasures begin to bear fruit

- FERC notes that price caps have driven costs down despite Republican predictions otherwise

- court finds that price fixing was not illegal

- Duke Energy employees **blow the whistle, under oath!**

- GAO finds FERC's investigation of price fixing was bogus

- FERC judge makes bizarre ruling: California owed miniscule refund

- natural gas price gouging: accusations fly between companies

- Legislature goes for SoCalEd bailout

- October: PUC repudiates Davis's long-term contracts

- San Francisco ballot measures to establish a public utility

- Ballot measure loses, barely

The Enron scandal which followed after the California power crisis is covered in a new page here. That page is being continually updated; this one is now historical.

http://www.paulkienitz.net/electricity-2001.html

---

From The American Prospect,8/13/03:

http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2003/08/blumenthal-m-08-13.html

California Confidential

Who are the mystery men behind the recall push?

By Max Blumenthal

"It's a victory. A total victory!"

Howard Kaloogian exclaimed on the right-wing Worldmag.com after

hearing that the petition to recall the election of California's

embattled Gov. Gray Davis had gained enough signatures to qualify as a

ballot question.

Kaloogian, a former Republican California legislator, had plenty of

reason to cheer.

:{Because while the media have presented Rep. Darrell Issa (D-Calif.),

the wealthy car-alarm magnate, as the man who drove the recall, he's

actually been little more than a useful idiot for a stealthy group of

GOP operatives who laid the groundwork.}:

Months before the recall was even a blip on the media radar, this

consultant cabal began manipulating California's idiosyncratic

electoral system, creating a muscular funding mechanism and exploiting

it for its members' own ends.

The cabal includes Kaloogian, who was a:{ right-wing backbencher in the

state Assembly, Sal Russo, who handled banker Bill Simon's hapless

2002 gubernatorial campaign, and David Gilliard, a veteran GOP

strategist with a career steeped in scandal.}:

They're:{ joined by former Enron pollster and Republican tactician Frank

Luntz, }:who devised a strategy for the recall campaign centering around

negative character attacks and avoidance of policy discussion.

With the surprise announcement of actor Arnold Schwarzenegger -- who

boasted on The Tonight Show Aug. 6, :{"I have plenty of money. Nobody

can buy me off." -- the movie star's high-priced uber-consultants

George Gorton and Don Sipple}: have grabbed the baton in the recall

race, eager to take it the last mile to the state capitol.

Thanks to this handful of men and the millionaires who bankrolled

them, what started with a petition and a few phone calls has become an

election that may unseat a twice-elected governor and dramatically

affect the lives of one in seven Americans.

The recall saga began in February when Ted Costa, a self-styled

"anti-tax activist," started gathering the requisite 100 signatures to

file a recall petition.

:{(It took an additional 899,900 signatures to turn that petition into a

ballot initiative.) Kaloogian and Russo urged Costa to hold off.}:

They wanted time to get their own recall committee off the ground to

solicit donations.

But Costa went ahead on his own and filed the petition, forcing them

to improvise.

:{With little public interest in a recall despite Davis' low approval

rating and the state's fiscal crisis, Russo and Kaloogian realized

that a movement would have to be manufactured from the top down.}:

In order to find a funding source to jump-start the movement,

Kaloogian enlisted Ray Haynes, a Republican leader in the state

Assembly's far-right caucus.

:{To his chagrin, Haynes was rebuffed by Simon, Schwarzenegger and

Gerald Parsky, George W. Bush's chief California fund-raiser.}:

Parsky initially distanced himself from the recall out of concern that

it might backfire or divert funds away from Bush's 2004 re-election

drive.

:{Only after these rejections did Haynes call on fellow right-winger

Issa, who was planning to run for governor in 2006.}:

Issa enthusiastically stepped forward to form his own recall

committee, Rescue California, with $1.7 million from his personal

fortune.

Suddenly, droves of clipboard-waving petitioners were descending upon

the nucleus of California civic life -- shopping-mall parking lots --

and were paid $1 per signature.

To direct Rescue California, essentially the recall's funding

mechanism, Issa hired :{Dave Gilliard, a Republican operative with a

reputation for using underhanded tactics to help his archconservative

clients' campaigns.

In 1988, for example, in a stunt reminiscent of Mississippi's

Reconstruction-era "shotgun policy," Gilliard arranged for uniformed

guards to stand outside Orange County polling places in predominately

Latino districts to deter the kinds of voters who might cast ballots

against his conservative Republican client.}:

As the director of Rescue California, Gilliard contrived an ingenious

plan to get contributions from state legislators who were his clients

in exchange for political favors.

The Sacramento Bee first reported in May that:{ Gilliard had sent 1

million mailers to heavily Republican -- and highly affluent -- zip

codes in the state soliciting donations and support for the recall.

These letters bore the signatures of a number of Gilliard's clients,

giving them much-needed name recognition in next year's Republican

primaries against opponents not included in the letters.}:

For the privilege of inclusion in Gilliard's promotions, the

politicians were prepared to pay him.

One of Gilliard's clients, Republican Assembly member John Campbell,

signed letters sent to Irvine, where he is facing a primary challenge

in the overwhelmingly Republican district from fellow Republican Ken

Maddox, who was not included in the letters.

Campbell donated $10,000 to Rescue California and gained the

endorsement of the Lincoln Club, an organization of businesspeople and

executives that has also coughed up $100,000 for Rescue California.

Another of Gilliard's clients who signed the letters, Cristi

Milazzo-Cristich, is a Lincoln Club activist and a candidate for the

Assembly in Orange County; she has kicked in $7,000 to the committee.

:{Meanwhile, Republican State Sen. Rico Oller paid Rescue California

$30,000 for the honor of being the voice of a radio spot on behalf of

the recall.}:

Though Gilliard told The Sacramento Bee that "involving many

politicians is a good way for Rescue California to cover costs," in

late July he told me that the notion that his clients have donated to

Rescue California to advance their own campaigns is "idiotic."

"We asked every member of the legislature if they would like to sign

the letter for Rescue California," he said.

:{"Most of my clients accepted because my clients happen to be smarter.

The other half that didn't accept are not my clients.}:"

Russo, who directs the Recall Gray Davis committee along with

Kaloogian, called Gilliard's fund-raising ploy the natural byproduct

of a dog-eat-dog political atmosphere.}:

"People in politics always do things for their own advantage, like

Issa funding the recall with his own money, so that's the way politics

works," Russo told me. "I don't see anything wrong with that." Both

Russo and Gilliard have been enriched considerably by the donations to

their own committees: :{Russo has run up a $67,000 tab while Gilliard

sent Issa a $72,000 bill for June alone.}:

:{While the consultants paid by Issa propelled the recall, Issa

personally intimidated one Republican consultant to shut down his

operation against it. As founder of Republicans Against the Recall,

political consultant and former Lincoln Club CEO Scott Barnett called

the recall "a political weapon of mass destruction."}: Even though he

shares Republicans' disdain for Davis, Barnett opposes the recall

because he believes it will :{set a dangerous precedent that will widen

the partisan divide. "If this recall goes through here, there will be

retribution by Democrats against Republican officeholders across

California," he said. "This will open the door to say, 'It's

acceptable to go after officeholders who have committed no crime and

are mentally and physically capable of governing.'" Barnett claims

that in retribution for his own principled stance, Issa personally

called one of his clients, a Republican state legislator, and told him

to fire Barnett as his pollster. Barnett also claims that Andy

Gharakhani, Issa's district director, called another of his clients

and threatened to run a Republican against Barnett's client in the

upcoming primaries if the client did not fire the dissident Barnett.}:

"I don't take it personally," said Barnett. "You know,Darrell Issa

has got a lot of money and because of that he has very little

accountability -- that's just Darrell."

Still another consultant who has been instrumental in setting the

recall in motion -- and profiting from it -- is the Washington-based

Luntz, a former pollster for Enron and Newt Gingrich.

His services were retained by Issa's Rescue California to :{develop an

anti-Davis strategy based on focus-group research conducted in Orange

and Sacramento counties.}:

His memo, provided in July by U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi

to the San Francisco Chronicle, outlined 17 ways to "kill Davis

softly."

your recall effort."

:{Luntz pointed out that the majority of Californians "are unfamiliar

with the recall process -- and this uncertainty means voters can be

easily swayed in either direction."

Luntz's tactics were on bold display during Schwarzenegger's

boisterous :{Tonight Show appearance.

The actor used the spot to announce his surprise candidacy while

launching a withering attack on Davis and the Sacramento establishment

before a national audience.

Carefully avoiding mentioning the budget or any policy, Schwarzenegger

boomed the Luntz-tested line, "Do your job for the people and do it

well, otherwise you are 'Hasta la vista, baby!'"}:

Cheering in the audience were a gaggle of Republican operatives,

including Schwarzenegger handler George Gorton.

:{Gorton was first hired by Schwarzenegger in 2002 to direct the star's

campaign for Proposition 49, a feel-good ballot measure providing

grants for after-school programs (and intended as a vehicle to

establish Schwarzenegger's political credibility before a run for

governor in 2006).}:

Gorton is a veteran consultant known for his work with Republican

moderates like former Gov. Pete Wilson.

He is highly regarded in California political circles, and for that,

his services carry a hefty price tag.

During the Prop. 49 campaign, :{Schwarzenegger heaped $780,000 on

Gorton's California Group.}:

This June, with the premature arrival of a gubernatorial campaign

thanks to the recall, the money started rolling again with a:{ $60,000

payment to Gorton through the Prop. 49 committee.}:

In this new effort, Gorton has taken on Sipple, his former partner

from Wilson's campaigns, as Schwarzenegger's media director.

Sipplegained a reputation as a hard-hitting media consultant by

fashioning ads to push viewers' emotional buttons.

:{These negative, character-based attacks on opponents were instrumental

in securing a series of Republican victories, notably George W. Bush's

defeat of Ann Richards in the 1994 Texas gubernatorial race.}:

:{But after working on Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign, which

ended in a landslide defeat, and weathering a personal scandal in

1997, which caused his resignation from his ongoing political work,

Sipple's luster was tarnished.

In 2000, Sipple again found himself embroiled in scandal, exposed for

accepting $120,000 from then-California Insurance Commissioner Chuck

Quackenbush -- a client planning to run for Senate -- to craft a

veiled campaign ad in which the commissioner played a starring role.

The money Sipple received was part of $13 million intended for

earthquake victims.}:

The victims never saw a penny of it, and Quackenbush was forced to

resign in disgrace.

But now as Schwarzenegger's media consultant, Sipple is positioned to

return to his former influence and paycheck.

On Aug. 13, Schwarzenegger shuffled his team, demoting Gorton and

:{adding another consultant embroiled in the Quackenbush scandal, Martin

Wilson, who accepted $375,000 from the former insurance commissioner.}:

Gorton's role as Schwarzenegger's chief strategist has been assumed by

Bob White, Gov. Wilson's former chief of staff.

The move highlights Schwarzegger's close ties to Wilson, who is

persona non grata among Latino voters for his support of the

anti-immigrant initiative Prop. 187 in 1994.

After The Tonight Show, Gorton told a reporter from the San Francisco

Chronicle that he was unaware of Schwarzenegger's intentions prior to

the program.

Besides his impending demotion, there are other signs that Gorton may

have been telling the truth.

Russo recounts a series of private meetings, while Schwarzenegger was

in Mexico City promoting Terminator 3, between Gorton and former Los

Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, who lost to Simon in the 2002

Republican gubernatorial primary.

As Russo explained to me, Gorton was planning to jump ship and join

Riordan's campaign if Schwarzenegger did not declare, moving from one

self-funding client to the next.

:{But Schwarzenegger's announcement came as the greatest shock to Issa,

who had already spent some of his car-alarm fortune to warm up a

gubernatorial campaign.}:

He had taken out radio ads, printed up posters and hired a new team of

consultants, including:{ Ken Khachigian, a veteran speechwriter who

served on President Richard Nixon's 1972 campaign "attack group}:," and

Larry McCarthy, the media producer of the infamous Willie Horton ad

that helped elect George Bush Senior in 1988.

However, with the Republican Party suddenly lined up behind

Schwarzenegger, Issa's ambition was crushed.

:{He found himself at a press conference, the victim of a vast

Republican conspiracy, and he cried}:.

Make way for Schwarzenegger and his team of consultants, whose credo

can be best summarized by a statement Gorton made in Mother Jones

while working on then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin's 1996

re-election campaign:

"Unless you're going to make some serious money, it's not worth it."

===

bs Bader & Associates qualified the historic Gray Davis Recall Petition in 2003 that culminated with Arnold Schwarzenegger's election as Governor of California. The process of qualifying the Recall Petition using paid signature gatherers was historic for two reasons. The first was that no California Governor had ever been recalled. The second was that never in California's history had such an extensive and well-funded "blocking campaign" been waged in an attempt to prevent a petition from qualifying for the ballot.

A committee called Taxpayers Against the Governor's Recall was established by Gray Davis supporters. This committee retained virtually all of the major signature-gathering companies operating in California and offered them a pro-Davis Petition to circulate (known as a plebiscite), in exchange for not handling the Recall. Other petition projects were also offered to the professional petition companies in order to tie up nearly everyone associated with paid signature gathering in California, so that there wouldn't be anyone left to collect signatures for the Recall Petition. Many circulators that did end up working for the Recall complained of harassment and/or intimidation by Davis supporters.

Against this backdrop, Ted Costa of People's Advocate and Mark Abernathy of Western Pacific Research asked Tom Bader and his wife Joy Bader to take on the daunting task of qualifying the Davis Recall Petition. Congressman Darrell Issa eventually provided most of the funding for the Recall Petition through a committee called Rescue California, headed by Dave Gilliard of Gilliard Blanning & Associates.

To counter the massive, organized, and well-funded blocking campaign,Tom and Joy Bader assembled a large network of contractors, most of whom were independent of the companies that were retained to obstruct the Davis Recall, to ensure that the necessary signatures could be collected in spite of the fact that many professional signature gatherers would not work on the Recall.

In order to accurately validate signatures to ensure that the Recall Petition wouldn't be sabotaged by opponents deliberately signing their names several times, or encouraging non-registered voters to sign, the Baders had validation software custom designed for the firm. This software enabled Bader & Associates to cost effectively verify a large volume of signatures in a short time and accurately track duplicate signatures, a scourge that has threatened to disqualify a number of initiatives in recent years.

This network of contractors, combined with the software and other quality control measures, enabled Bader & Associates to qualify the Davis Recall Petition (the first Recall Petition to ever qualify for the ballot in California and only the second one ever to qualify in the United States) in record time with one of the highest rates of valid signatures and possibly the lowest rate of duplicate signatures ever achieved on a paid signature drive.

When all was said and done, the unprecedented blocking campaign that spent millions of dollars to prevent the Recall Petition from qualifying for the ballot turned out to be a big waste of money. Without the knowledge, experience, and hands-on management of Bader & Associates, it's a fairly safe bet that the Recall would never have happened, and Arnold Schwarzenegger may never have become Governor (because of the difficulty of winning the Republican primary).

Whether or not you agreed with the outcome of the Recall Election, we hope you'll agree that qualifying the Recall Petition was an accomplishment that took skill and commitment to success. Tom and Joy Bader and Bader & Associates, Inc. would like to bring this same skill and commitment to success to your project.

Campaign Finance:

TAXPAYERS AGAINST THE GOVERNOR'S RECALL, ENVIRONMENTAL, LABOR AND RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS AND OTHERS WHO OPPOSE THE WASTE OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS

http://cal-access.ss.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1344135&session=2011&view=received

KIMBALL PETITION MANAGEMENT INC.	PETITION CIRCULATING		$1,200,000.00
ARNO POLITICAL CONSULTANTS, INC.	PETITION CIRCULATING	THE FOLLOWING ARE SUBVENDORS PAID BY ARNO POLITICAL CONSULTANTS, INC.	$680,145.00
KIMBALL PETITION MANAGEMENT INC.	PETITION CIRCULATING		$475,000.00
NATIONAL PETITION MANAGEMENT	PETITION CIRCULATING		$447,040.00
JSM, INC.	PETITION CIRCULATING		$306,046.00
KIMBALL PETITION MANAGEMENT INC.	PETITION CIRCULATING		$300,000.00
ARNO POLITICAL CONSULTANTS, INC.	PETITION CIRCULATING		$200,000.00
PROGRESSIVE CAMPAIGNS, INC.	PETITION CIRCULATING		$200,000.00
ARNO POLITICAL CONSULTANTS, INC.	PETITION CIRCULATING	SEE PAYMENT TO ARNO POLITICAL CONSULTANTS, INC. FOR SUBVENDOR INFORMATION.	$171,606.60
NATIONAL PETITION MANAGEMENT	PETITION CIRCULATING		$158,992.20
SUSAN BURNSIDE DBA BURNSIDE & ASSOCIATES	CAMPAIGN CONSULTANTS		$135,000.00
PROGRESSIVE CAMPAIGNS, INC.	PETITION CIRCULATING		$123,300.00
JSM, INC.	PETITION CIRCULATING		$102,443.00
PETITION MANAGEMENT	PETITION CIRCULATING		$102,032.45

endit1