Proposition Fails
I mentioned the other day that I've been getting a lot of political mail this election season. As in snail mail.
About half the mail concerns various ballot propositions. "Props", as they're known for short, are California's form of of direct democracy where people are able to propose and vote directly on laws. I analyzed an example of why ballot props are so confusing and make bad law a few years ago. People interested in learning more may find Wikipedia's page on California ballot propositions an interesting read.
California is not the only state in the US with ballot props but it is perhaps the most notorious. The reason it's notorious is that ballot props can really distort the political system. Indeed this year's crop of props contains at least one representative of each basic failure mode:
1) Desirable goal with a fundamentally flawed implementation
This is perhaps the biggest pitfall of citizen initiated legislation. Instead of a bill going through a deliberative process informed by full time legislators with professional staffs to analyze and improve it before it becomes law, a ballot prop can be written by anyone, and say anything, and if enough citizens sign the petition it goes on the ballot. Then if a majority of the public vote in favor it becomes law. Some deeply flawed bills become law (or nearly become law) this way, especially when the goal of the prop is appealing and the flaws aren't blatantly obvious.
2) Spending guarantees that lock out our ability to handle change
Similar to item #1 there are often props that seek to guarantee spending for something. Typically it's a thing with very broad appeal, like elementary school education or retrofitting public buildings for earthquake safety. It can seem very desirable to lock in funding, either at a fixed dollar amount or as a fixed percentage, for such things. But every time we hard-code another portion of the budget we make it more difficult for our state to respond to change. The pain is especially acute when there's an economic recession and the legislature has to make hard choices about reducing the budget. Except they can't because these props tie their hands. Then we see things like health services for poor seniors being savaged because too much other stuff in the budget is locked in.
3) Noble-sounding title atop a prop that does the opposite, backed by crass moneyed interests
It seems like there are at least a couple of these every election cycle. They're the props couched in terms of broadly desirable goals like funding education and improving the environment. But when you read the specifics you see that they actually cut funding rather than increase it, hamstring regulations designed to protect what they tout, and/or create deliberate roadblocks to achieving these desirable goals. And, of course, when you "follow the money" you see that these props are typically funded by an industry or even a single company looking to increase its profits.
About half the mail concerns various ballot propositions. "Props", as they're known for short, are California's form of of direct democracy where people are able to propose and vote directly on laws. I analyzed an example of why ballot props are so confusing and make bad law a few years ago. People interested in learning more may find Wikipedia's page on California ballot propositions an interesting read.
California is not the only state in the US with ballot props but it is perhaps the most notorious. The reason it's notorious is that ballot props can really distort the political system. Indeed this year's crop of props contains at least one representative of each basic failure mode:
1) Desirable goal with a fundamentally flawed implementation
This is perhaps the biggest pitfall of citizen initiated legislation. Instead of a bill going through a deliberative process informed by full time legislators with professional staffs to analyze and improve it before it becomes law, a ballot prop can be written by anyone, and say anything, and if enough citizens sign the petition it goes on the ballot. Then if a majority of the public vote in favor it becomes law. Some deeply flawed bills become law (or nearly become law) this way, especially when the goal of the prop is appealing and the flaws aren't blatantly obvious.
2) Spending guarantees that lock out our ability to handle change
Similar to item #1 there are often props that seek to guarantee spending for something. Typically it's a thing with very broad appeal, like elementary school education or retrofitting public buildings for earthquake safety. It can seem very desirable to lock in funding, either at a fixed dollar amount or as a fixed percentage, for such things. But every time we hard-code another portion of the budget we make it more difficult for our state to respond to change. The pain is especially acute when there's an economic recession and the legislature has to make hard choices about reducing the budget. Except they can't because these props tie their hands. Then we see things like health services for poor seniors being savaged because too much other stuff in the budget is locked in.
3) Noble-sounding title atop a prop that does the opposite, backed by crass moneyed interests
It seems like there are at least a couple of these every election cycle. They're the props couched in terms of broadly desirable goals like funding education and improving the environment. But when you read the specifics you see that they actually cut funding rather than increase it, hamstring regulations designed to protect what they tout, and/or create deliberate roadblocks to achieving these desirable goals. And, of course, when you "follow the money" you see that these props are typically funded by an industry or even a single company looking to increase its profits.