Blockbuster Democracy

A federal appeals court has reversed a district judge's ruling barring the release of referendum petitions in Washington state. The appeal court didn't release a full opinon and it's not clear when the petitions in question will be released.

Republican Tom Campbell, candidate for governor of California, has retired the trophy for most specific policy answers by someone running for high office, and the election is nine months away. In an interview on the Orange County Register web site, he expresses support for a constitutional convention, and argues such a gathering should include reform of the ballot initiative process:

At the just-concluded global forum on direct democracy, delegates created more on-line resources to track and monitor initiative and referendum worldwide. Here are a few new ones:

-on initiative and referendum in Asia.

-in days ahead, a new interactive world map from IRI-Europe.

-To come (under construction as of Sept. 17): a new community web site of the global forum.

Last year at the first global forum, in Aarau, Switzerland, I had the opportunity to visit with the German democratic activists who spend several months each year driving a doubledecker bus (originally from Berlin) to promote greater use of direct democracy. It's called the Omnibus for Direct Democracy.

Your blogger had never heard of dog-racing until he was a college student in Boston and visited the track known as Wonderland. A very strange place. In less than two weeks it will close, the victim of another successful ballot initiative from the direct democracy juggernaut that is the animal protection lobby. (This initiative banned dog racing).

I know you'll be as relieved as I was to hear the news that backers of an initiative to establish a commission on extraterrestrial matters in Denver appear to have more than enough signatures to qualify the measure for the city ballot. Apparently, 7,000 people signed their names to this petition. Assuming that most of them were earthlings registered to vote in Denver, qualification is a formality.

California voters passed a multibillion dollar bond for high-speed rail last fall -- despite the fact that there's no clear plan for building such rail (and estimates of the costs far exceed the value of the bond). This is bad news. The prospect of big money -- without a specific plan -- creates, as they say in the retail trade, shrinkage.

At least local taxes. Ballotpedia notes that most of the local taxes on Aug. 25 ballots in California passed.

This is an interesting issue because of the widespread interest among good government groups in the state of returning more power over taxes and spending to local governments. After the passage of Prop 13 in 1978, the state bailed out local governments that lost property tax revenues and in the process centralized fiscal decision-making in the state Capitol.

The Nevada legislature, in the guise of cleaning up signature gathering, has made it harder to qualify a measure for the ballot. Much harder.

Late word today from the Washington Secretary of State: Referendum 71 -- the measure that would ask voters to reverse legislation granting all the rights of married couples to couples registered as domestic partners -- has "more than the bare minimum" of signatures needed to qualify for the ballot, according to preliminary tallies.