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Excerpt from a Dec. 10, 2007 LA Times column by George Skelton

"Still, both sides are hoping for a legislative agreement within the next month or two -- before the worsening state budget deficit really sours moods, claims all the leaders' attention and prompts many lawmakers to question whether the state should be borrowing more money anyway.

A high-powered coalition of business, agriculture, labor and water leaders decided not to wait. Last week, they filed four $11.7-billion bond initiatives. They'll poll voters and choose the most popular measure.

"The status quo is unacceptable," says Allan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce who heads the coalition.

Especially at risk are fragile old levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which funnels drinking water to 24 million people and irrigates 3 million acres. It needs to be re-plumbed and made more fish-friendly because courts have cut back on water pumping to protect endangered species.

The coalition's initiative would earmark $3.5 billion to help build two dams in Fresno and Colusa counties and expand a third in Contra Costa County.

Perata also has filed a rival $6.8-billion bond initiative supported by environmentalists.

Schwarzenegger is expected to strongly support the coalition's measure if Capitol negotiations fail.

Last week, the governor formally gave up on the Legislature passing a redistricting bill and endorsed a ballot initiative sponsored by reform groups. In fact, he became the campaign chairman.

"The people of California are not served well by a system so gerrymandered that 99% of the incumbents get reelected in the districts they themselves draw," Schwarzenegger said. "We need a system of truly competitive legislative districts so when lawmakers go home they can be held accountable."

The initiative would establish an independent commission to draw legislative districts. Congressional districts still would be shaped by the Legislature. The reformers didn't want to weather the big bucks opposition of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco).

Democratic legislative leaders -- Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles) -- reneged on a pledge to pass their own redistricting reform.

"I don't want to sit here and say Nuñez was lying," says Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause, one of the initiative sponsors. "I just don't think he has the political juice to make it happen. His [Democratic] caucus members won't let him."

So once again, interest groups will bypass the Capitol and take matters into their own hands."

Democracy Derailed: Initiative Campaigns and the Power of Money by David S. Broder
New York: Harcourt, 2005.
--Some main interest groups in CA:
Casinos
Insurance
Gas
Energy
Unions = democratic supporters, so conservativess mobilize against them (96) - also complicated by insurance wtf???
--Is it always easier to be the opponent than the proponent?
--Do interest groups screw up the legislature and would they fight either way, regardless of the existence of the initiative? (pg 87)
--Why does this author start out HATING the process? it seems to weaken his analysis. it makes me not want to trust him
--"since no such measure had a chance in the Democratic legislature, as everyone knew, the real threat lay in an initiative"
--"fiscal impact statement" on 226 (116)
--in the words of a signature gatherer, big financial backers could be "trial lawyers, timber industry, sierra club" (213)


Consultants and Direct Democracy, by David B. Magleby; Kelly D. Patterson
PS: Political Science and Politics © 1998 American Political Science Associati
--CA has controversial initiatives (161)
--gvien way to lots of interest groups (161)
--consultants make bank (161-162)
--campaign is about persuading voters not actual reality (163)
--idea: 1988 Insurance & counter strategists(168)
--consultant stratagiists (168)


Prospects For The Initiative Process
By Elizabeth Gerber, June 6, 2000


http://www.ni4d.us/library/prospects.htm

"A second factor that exposes the initiative process to the influence of interest group money is that voters in direct legislation elections choose policy directly rather than electing representatives who choose policy on their behalf. As a result, direct legislation, especially the initiative, lacks the deliberative quality of legislative policy making."

" As a result, voters who desire information about the content of propositions have few alternatives but to rely on interest groups for that information. When interest groups can influence the channels of political communication, they may be able to use their informational advantages to mislead voters"

"The absence of useful cues makes direct legislation voters especially reliant on substantive information disseminated by interest groups during the campaign."

"since one of the primary justifications for the signature requirement is to measure popular support for a proposition, many argue that this purpose is defeated when a proponent can simply pay professional petition circulators who care little about the initiative legislation (Garrett 1999)."

"It is clear that money is sufficient to qualify a measure for the ballot (see Garrett 1999)."

"grassroots citizen interests tend to rely on organized interest groups to offset the steep cost of qualifying and later campaigning for their initiatives. "

"Given the great advantage that money provides at the qualifying stage, we would expect the set of measures that make it to the ballot to reflect this bias towards wealthy interest groups. Surprisingly, however, the bias, if one exists at all, is not overwhelming."

"Whereas money is sufficient to qualify a measure for the ballot, recent research indicates that it is far from sufficient to pass initiative legislation. A number of studies have addressed the role of money in the initiative process, particularly at the campaign stage. The basic finding of this research is that while some amount of money is necessary, allowing proponents to purchase advertisements, mass mailings, and other forms of campaign information, groups with vast financial resources are regularly stymied at the ballot box. Something important is lacking from their expensive campaigns."

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Copyright (c) 1999 Texas Law Review
Texas Law Review

June, 1999

77 Tex. L. Rev. 1845

LENGTH: 21818 words

SYMPOSIUM: Money, Agenda Setting, and Direct Democracy

NAME: Elizabeth Garrett *

Well-financed groups and individuals are aware of the power of direct democracy as an agenda-setting tool, and they know that adequate funding is the only requirement to appear on the ballot. Accordingly, initiatives are increasingly providing these groups - many already in command of other political resources that can be deployed to affect the policy agenda - with additional agenda-setting power.

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Paradise Lost by Peter Schrag

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Elisabeth R.
Gerber,
Interest Group Influence in the
California Initiative Process.
PPIC Research Brief Sept 1999 Issue 15
http://www.ni4d.us/library/interestgroupinfluenceincalifornia.pdf

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Direct Democracy’s Effects on Political Parties
Shaun Bowler
Todd Donovan
http://law.usc.edu/academics/centers/cslp/conferences/direct_democracy_05/documents/bowler.pdf

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Bowler & Hanneman Just How Pluralist is Direct Democracy? The Structure of Interest Group Participation in Ballot Proposition Elections. 2006
--contributions to initiative campaigns &structure of interest group participation

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The Effectiveness of Money in Politics:
Ballot Measures, Candidate Elections and Roll Call Votes
Thomas Stratmann

http://law.usc.edu/academics/centers/cslp/conferences/direct_democracy_05/documents/stratmann.pdf

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Rethinking the Unconstitutionality of Contribution and Expenditure Limits in
Ballot Measure Campaigns
Richard L. Hasen*

http://law.usc.edu/academics/centers/cslp/conferences/direct_democracy_05/documents/hasen.pdf