Initiative and referendum

“ Second in importance is the people's sovereignty. The government should train and direct the people in their acquisition of political knowledge and ability, thereby enabling them to exercise the powers of election, recall, initiative and referendum. ”

“ The argument for it will certainly be greatly reinforced if we are widely to enter upon the experiment of law-making by initiative and referendum. The people are sovereign, but if only a portion of them speak, how are we to know the real voice of authority? There have been elections, some of them passing on statutes referred to the electorate, some on important constitutional changes, in which the votes of only a majority of a minority were effective. ”

“ People say the initiative and the referendum, against which I have talked, are like a ratchet wheel. If you extend power to the people and the voters, you will never get it back again. I agree that is a rule that generally works, but with respect to the initiative and the referendum there is an element that may cause an exception to the rule. The initiative will throw a heavy burden on the electorate. Cranks and their followers will constantly be compelling voters to act upon wild proposals. ”

“ The more valuable part of the reform is undoubtedly the referendum. The initiative is hardly necessary, except by way of giving a referendum on measures which otherwise would not emerge from the legislature; and there is a growing inclination to give a referendum on all laws or measures involving a grant of a franchise or of a right or privilege at the expense of the general public, or the town or city concerned. ”

“ The Initiative and Compulsory Referendum are attempts to cure the evils which have developed in our practice of representative government by means of a return to the old, unsuccessful, and discarded method of direct legislation and by rehabilitating one of the most impracticable of Rousseau's theories. ”

“ The initiative is a means of seeing to it that measures which the people want shall be passed,—when legislatures defy or ignore public opinion. The referendum is a means of seeing to it that the unrepresentative measures which they do not want shall not be placed upon the statute book. ”

“ A successful attempt to bestow upon legislative bodies, composed of such doubtful material and subject to such equivocal traditions anything resembling complete governmental responsibility, would be a dangerous business. Legislatures have degenerated into the condition of being merely agents, rather than principals in the work of government; and the strength and the propriety of the contemporary movement in favor of the initiative and the referendum is to be attributed to this condition. ”

“ The Referendum, the constant and easy Recall, the everlasting Initiative are dinned into our ears as the cure-alls of every ill of the body politic. On the contrary, I submit that while in the absence of any better method as yet devised and accepted, the process of reaching results by a count of the "majority told by the head" of the citizens then present and voting has certain political advantages, yet, for all this, as a final, scientific, political process, it is unworthy of consideration. A passing expedient, it in no degree reflects credit on twentieth-century intelligence. ”

“ A recognition of what an incubus it is should make us hospitable to all those devices which aim at making politics responsive by disturbing the alignments of habit. The initiative and referendum will help: they are a method of voting on definite issues instead of electing an administration in bulk. If cleverly handled these electoral devices should act as a check on a wholesale attitude toward politics. Men could agree on a candidate and disagree on a measure. ”

“ But with the Referendum in their hands (especially with the Initiative added to it) the will of the people is always present. The people can hasten legislation where it moves slowly. They can retard it where it presses too fast ahead. They themselves can make the pace. And the effect on themselves is that with this added responsibility, they take a quick interest in their own concerns. In the first place they break up the power of political organisations; and in the second place they themselves become alert and educated citizens, responsible and intelligent guiders of their own destinies. ”

“ The initiative is that phase of democracy which makes it possible for the infuriated mob, under the leadership of the demagogue, to enact legislation.
The referendum is that phase of democracy which assumes that the minority should rescind impulsively at a special election the deliberate action of the majority at a regular election. ”

“ For example, the representatives of a minority party, seeking a concession from a majority which has just passed a bill, will threaten, if their demands are not granted, to agitate for the Referendum on the bill; this, though the minority itself may favor the measure, some of its members, perhaps, having voted for it. As the majority may be uncertain of the outcome of a struggle at the polls, it will probably be inclined to make peace on the terms dictated by the minority. ”

“ And where once the king reserved the right to veto and to initiate legislation, so now (as again in our Constitution) the people reserve the right to veto and to initiate legislation. And this is the plain and simple meaning of the two instruments of the Referendum and the Initiative, Their effect is to shift sovereignty from the parliament to the people, where the revolutions of the 17th and 18th ^ centuries shifted sovereignty from the king to the parliament. ”

“ Why, of course, the same organization that directs the voter regularly how to cast his ballot for candidates for office. The power of the extra-legal government to advise and direct the politically ignorant voter how to vote will be just as effective in the normal election to carry or defeat an act on an initiative or [Pg 121] referendum as it is to place men loyal to it in the offices of the legal government. ”

“ Especially is it difficult to get up a petition after several successive appeals coming close together, the constant agitation growing tiresome as well as financially burdensome. Hence, measures have sometimes become law simply because the people have not had time to recover from the prolonged agitation in connection with preceding propositions. Besides, each measure submitted to the optional Referendum brings with it two separate waves of popular discussion—one on the petition and one on the subsequent vote. ”

“ The only safe way is through direct legislation—through the referendum and initiative. The referendum and initiative does not mean more laws, but fewer, shorter, simpler, and more understandable ones." [599] "What is wanted is neither aristocracy, [220] plutocracy, nor demagoguecracy, but democracy—the one governing system which never has been tried. The people must learn that the game of politics is not an unfathomable science, but a struggle of rival interests in which no delegate can so well represent their needs as themselves." ”

“ The present movement for a purer and more direct democracy—the initiative, referendum and recall—is clearly an ineffective method of securing wise legislation, good official agents, or even a real expression of the people's will. The representative system is the most valuable system that has thus far been invented to make popular government possible and the introduction of more democracy, so-called, is a retrograde step. ”

“ The Initiative.—The complement of the referendum is the initiative. Through the exercise of the one the people may prevent the taking effect of a law or a constitutional amendment to which they object. ”

“ A (popular) referendum will take place only if the desired law has not been adopted by the People’s Chamber in a version with which the petitioners or their representations are in agreement.
(5) A (popular) referendum shall not be held on the budget, on tax legislation or on salary schedules.
(6) A law submitted to a (popular) referendum is considered as adopted if it has received the consent of a majority of the votes cast.
(7) A specific law shall regulate the procedures for popular initiative and (popular) referendum. ”

“ Six thousand citizens can compel consideration of any project by the legislature (“initiative,” first in 1845) , and the referendum exists in its “facultative” form, if demanded by 6000 citizens, and also in case of expenditure (not included in the budget) of over half a million francs. ”

“ In the vote for delegates to the conventions the
voter is accorded the right to express his preference for men to be
candidates. The corrupt practices plank deserves commendation. It cannot
be made too strong, for every attempt to do away with the irregular,
vicious methods used is a step toward good government.
The plank which arouses the greatest opposition is that which
incorporates the initiative, referendum, and recall. ”