By Pat Frischmann

Terry Christensen told last week’s Morning Forum audience initiatives have become “a favorite tool for special interest groups.”

Government by initiative, California’s 100-year-old venture in direct democracy, is a “bad thing,” declared San Jose State political science professor Terry Christensen at the Los Altos Morning Forum Oct. 4.

Christensen, specialist in state and local politics and author of eight books, questioned the value of replacing representative government with direct democracy. In his view, initiatives are flawed answers to complex problems. Voters tend to lack any “deep knowledge” of an initiative’s pros and cons, which may be one reason why two-thirds of all ballot initiatives fail.

“Proposition 13 (California’s 1978 solution for skyrocketing property taxes) addressed a real problem but was not good overall public policy,” Christensen said. “We are still dealing with the aftermath.”

Twenty-two subsequent initiatives have attempted to fix problems created by Proposition 13. Among those problems are the state’s ongoing fiscal crisis and the shift of the property tax burden onto the shoulders of young homeowners and new businesses.

Devised early last century as a way to break the back of political machines and allow citizens to have a say in government, initiatives in this century have become a favorite tool for special-interest groups, Christensen said.

The number of statewide initiatives on the ballot has quintupled since the 1960s. Even though no state offices are being contested on Nov. 8, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has called a special statewide election, at an estimated cost of $80 million. On the ballot are eight propositions, several of them gubernatorial attempts to make an end run around the state Legislature.

Government gridlock is one major factor in the rising popularity of government by initiative, Christensen said, noting that there are others.

“The Legislature is more rigidly partisan and less willing to compromise, and party discipline is strong,” he said. A post-census, bipartisan deal to carve out safe districts for each party perpetuates statehouse gridlock. Initiatives also are contributors, because they control how 85 percent of state budget funds must be allocated. Finally, California is one of only three states to require a two-thirds majority for budget approval, which makes it difficult to reach consensus. Other states mandate a simple majority.

Mounting an initiative campaign, which depends heavily on television advertising, can cost from $2 million to $200 million. Christensen said that despite the steep price tag, the lure of presenting one’s case to voters in high-profile California is irresistible to a host of deep-pockets groups.

In addition to politicians, they include interest groups such as environmentalists and unions; national organizations that want to set precedents on issues such as term limits; proponents of issues such as abortion; corporate and business interests like the landlords who pushed Proposition 13; and political consultants whose business is identifying issues, finding sponsors and funding, and mounting initiative campaigns.

California could return to representative democracy by reforming the initiative process, Christensen said, “but that’s unlikely because Californians like the power of direct democracy, and there is no money in reform.”

Nor is it likely for the Legislature and the governor to find common ground on issues.

“We lack the leadership for that,” Christensen said.

Christensen suggested that the only way to make direct democracy more representative is to make the electorate more representative of the state population.

“The electorate doesn’t represent California,” he said. “Seventy percent of voters are white and over 55 years of age. We need to figure out how to get people to vote and how to make the ballot measures easier for them to understand.”

For non-partisan information on the Nov. 8 statewide special election and the eight ballot propositions, visit the League of Women Voters site,www.smartvoter.org or the California Voter Foundation site, www.calvoter.org.