Linda Curtis of Austin, Texas(On September 17, 1999, the Wall Street Journal printed this letter responding to one from Gov. Jesse Ventura printed on September 1.) Taking Power Back From the People
In his Sept. 1 Letter to the Editor attacking the people's ability to self-govern through initiative and referendum, Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura sounds just like a career politician. He unabashedly asserts that Minnesota voters are just not competent enough to decide public-policy issues for themselves.
This is in stark contrast to the Jesse Ventura who ran for office with I&R as part of his campaign platform. I guess once he was actually in power, giving up some of that power to the people just didn't seem like a good idea any more.
Gov. Ventura claims that the initiative process has led to too many laws being enacted by the voters--that's simply not true. Only 1,902 statewide initiatives have been on the ballot in 100 years and only 787 were adopted (41%).
In contrast, the Minnesota legislature considered 6,656 laws in 1996-'97 alone, approving 422 of them. Thus, in one legislative session the Minnesota legislature passed half as many laws as the American people did in 24 states over 100 years.
As a matter of fact, the people using the initiative process adopted just 35 laws in 24 states in 1998 while the legislatures in those same 24 states adopted more than 14,000 laws after considering more than 70,000. With legislatures around the country enacting thousands of laws every year, what's wrong with letting the voters enact a few, particularly those the legislatures themselves will never enact, such as term limits, medical marijuana and campaign-finance reform.
The governor also claims that the initiative process has been corrupted by special interests, another example of his being poorly informed.
Prof. Elisabeth R. Gerber (arguably one of the top political scientists in the country), author of "The Populist Paradox: Interest Group Influence and the Promise of Direct Legislation," surveyed 168 different direct legislation campaigns in eight states and found that economic interest groups are "severely limited in their ability to pass new laws by initiative." She says that "by contrast, citizen groups with broad-based support and important organizational resources can much more effectively use direct legislation to pass new laws."
The fact is initiative and referendum is the only way the people can get around career politicians and special interests to enact reform. For a candidate that ran for office on the theme of "Bringing Power Back to the People," Gov. Ventura should be supporting the initiative process not bashing it.
M. Dane Waters, President
Initiative & Referendum Institute, Washington, D.C.
mdanewaters@iandrinstitute.org
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