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I&R
TALKING POINTS
Select the ones pertinent to your audience.
"... Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just
Powers
from the Consent of the Governed, ..."
The DECLARATION
OF INDEPENDENCE, 1776
“All political power is
inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded
on their authority,
and instituted for their benefit.”
THE
TEXAS
CONSTITUTION, Article 1, Section 2
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
1.
I&R is the people's check on
government. In Texas, we don’t have it.
2.
Sometimes it is claimed that if
Texans had the Initiative and Referendum (I&R) it would be used to hurt
minorities. This objection is not a valid because:
A.
The U.S. Constitution prohibits laws that discriminate against
minorities;
B. Proposed initiatives will
be scrutinized by the Attorney-General's office for constitutionality,
C. A bad law can always be
reversed by another Initiative, or stayed by the Court.
D. If a proposed law doesn't
inherently benefit voters, it probably won't pass. In
100-year of initiative activity, in 24 states only 1,902 initiatives have been
placed on the ballot; and voters approved only 787 of the proposals.
Citizens are far more cautious than Legislators. Every
session in
just 140 days, Texas Legislators impose over 1,000 new laws on
Texans.
3.
False arguments opposing I&R rights for Texans are common.
They include:
A.
Representative government in Texas
would end. (Not
so, the TX legislature would still pass over 99% of the laws. I&R
is simply our constitutional right of petition enumerated in the First
Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
B. Special
Interests would gain advantage. (No,
actually, Special Interests would lose their advantage of monopolizing
legislative activity thru their lobbyists. That's
why Special Interests so uniformly oppose I&R.)
C.
Texas would be flooded with elections. (Not
true, qualifying initiatives would appear on the ballot only at the next
state-wide general election in November of an even-numbered year.)
D.
The ballot would be flooded with propositions. (Unlikely,
but it's a non-problem. See The
Dallas
Morning News,
3/17/96
, editorial page under
INITIATIVE REFORM: the largest example of ballot flooding in
California
, 1990: 28
propositions; politicians placed 19 on the ballot; the citizens initiated
only 9. Voters voted for 6 of
the 9 initiatives, rejecting the remaining 22.)
E. Prop 13 ruined California, etc.
(This is a claim frequently made,
but to be brief, 3 studies cited in The Austin
American-Statesman editorial page, "Proposition 13 defended," (
10/10/94
), concluded: Prop 13 didn't cause the California
"mess." A
recession and a withdrawal of government defense contracts caused the drastic
shortfall in revenue.)
4.
The consolidated ownership of the
news media creates false perceptions within the citizenry. The competitive,
free-market era of media's critical oversight of government is practically
non-existent. I&R powers are needed to offset this governmental and
Special Interests' distortion of issues and conditions (and to propose
appropriate reforms).
5.
John Talley, retired legislator from
Longview
,
TX
, states: "There
are those occasions under our form of government when the interests of the
represented --- and the interests of the representatives are at odds. The
Initiative is the means by which the represented assure their interests
ultimately prevail. The Trans-TX
Corridor land grab and toll road menace and our unconstitutional Public School
Finance Bill are examples of the legislature and the citizenry being "at
odds." I&R powers are needed to "assure" that our
"interests ultimately prevail."
6.
INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM IS NOT
ABOUT POLITICS. IT'S ABOUT FREEDOM:
A. Freedom
from an abusive government: Milton Friedman, Nobel
Prize-winning economist states: "I believe our present predicament exists
because we have gradually developed governmental institutions in which the
people effectively have no voice." THRU I&R, TEXANS WOULD POSSESS
THAT VOICE!
B. Freedom to exercise
our constitutional right: Jerry
Patterson, Land Commissioner and former State Senator, states, "The first
amendment to the U.S. Constitution enumerates the right of the people "to
petition the government for redress of grievances.' . . .The legislature should
pass I&R and enact this right guaranteed by both the
U.S.
and the
Texas
constitutions."
C. Freedom from
government corruption: President Woodrow Wilson in 1913 stated: "We
are cleaning house, and in order to clean house the one thing we need is a good
broom. Initiative and referendum are good brooms."
7.
Two separate polls show that the
majority of Texans favor I&R: 1) the
National Federation of Independent Business poll --- 62% favored I&R with
21% opposed, and 2) A Rasmussen
Research random sample of 500 adult Texans in 1998 found that Texans want
initiative rights by a margin of 74% to 12%.
8.
New York Public Interest Research
Group Research studied voter turnout during the years 1976 to 1996.
Voter turnout was 6% higher in I&R states.
9. Prof. John Matsusaka,
University
of
Southern California
studied government
spending over a 30-year period. Spending
in I&R states was 4% lower than in non-I&R states.
10. Initiative and Referendum was in the
platform of the Republican Party of Texas (RPT) from 1979 to 1996. It
had the support of people such as William Clements, Walter Mengden, Waggoner
Carr, Dick Armey, George W. Bush, Tom Craddick and Jerry Patterson.
Furthermore, 2 separate advisory referendums on the Republican Party
primary ballots showed rank and file Republicans to favor I&R by margins of
7 to 1 and 5 to 1. In the mid-90s,
as the Republican Party came into control of all branches of the
Texas
State
government, the platform plank favoring I&R was replaced with one opposing
I&R.
11.
I&R is a tool of reform available to citizens when elected officials
disappoint, as they regularly do. Taxes
and regulation are on the rise. Government
growth has accelerated. The remedy
is to implement a tool (I&R) by which people can actually check government.
12. The recent state laws
creating the Trans-Texas Corridor, which is opposed in the party platform, and
allowing local officials in several urban areas to quickly convert free roads to
toll roads, and build new ones, with minimal citizen participation is an
excellent indicator of why I & R is needed – to correct the
effects of bad government decisions. The last session showed Republican
voters the weaknesses in a process that leaves all power in the hands of elected
and appointed officials.
13. In sum...I&R offers
Texans the only tool powerful enough to roll back government peacefully.
Its risks are so small as to be inconsequential.
“Men
by their makeup are naturally divided into two camps: those who fear and
distrust the people and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of
higher classes; and those who identify themselves with the people, have
confidence in them, cherish and consider them the safest and most honest, if not
always the wisest repository of the public interest.....These two camps exist in
every country, and wherever men are free to think, speak, and write, they will
identify themselves.”
— Thomas Jefferson
For
a discussion of opposition arguments
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