Commentary - A modern slingshot for voters

The voter initiative process — whereby citizens in 24 states and a majority of our country’s localities can place issues directly on the ballot for a decision by their fellow citizens — looks like nothing bigger than a slingshot next to the Goliath powers of government.

But sometimes the slingshot works. From the property tax-cutting Proposition 13 in the 1970s to the sweep of term limits in the 1990s, citizens have increased their control over elected officials using this one weapon.

Of course, had Goliath been smarter, or allotted more time for reflection prior to meeting David’s rock, he would no doubt have advocated restrictions on the possession and use of slingshots.

Today, politicians and powerful special interests actively work on a similar program, to restrict the voters’ weapon of choice when it comes to reform.

Since initiatives necessarily amount to an end-run around legislators, it isn’t terribly surprising that our solons regularly pass ever more restrictive rules to thwart the process. These include micromanaging petitioner pay, moving up deadlines, or restricting petition work to those residing in a given state or election district. In just the last two years, legislatures in seven states — Colorado, Florida, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, and South Dakota — have passed major new impediments to petition campaigns.

Legislators dub their “reforms” necessary to prevent special interests from dominating the process. Yet, each restriction increases the cost and difficulty of mounting initiative campaigns — to an oppressive level for grassroots activists, but (you guessed it) an achievable level for entrenched interests.

No wonder, then, that it is today’s most powerful political forces — from the public employees and teachers unions to the Chamber of Commerce — that clamor for a clampdown on citizen initiatives.

Fortunately, the federal courts haven’t played along. In March, in Citizens for Tax Reform v. Deters, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Ohio’s ban on paying people on the basis of the number of signatures collected. In July, in Nader v. Brewer, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit unanimously overturned Arizona’s law requiring that those who circulate a petition be residents of the state. More victories will surely follow.

Yet, many citizens lack the funding to file suit against unconstitutional restrictions. Without a suit, the courts cannot help. Even with a suit, courts can only help after quite a lag.

In the meantime, legislators pass more laws. And officials intervene to hamper ballot measures they oppose.

Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, for example, slanted the official summaries on two recent ballot measures. The summaries were rewritten after being declared inappropriate by courts.

But it took a lengthy legal battle, and that delayed the start of petition drives. Both a Cures Without Cloning measure and an initiative to end racial and gender preferences missed this November’s ballot as a result. Carnahan opposed both measures.

Other ideologues battle initiatives “outside the law,” so to speak.

The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center in Washington, funded by George Soros and various unions, trains and recruits professional “blockers” to harass people circulating petitions on issues the group opposes. These blockers yell at citizens signing petitions, swarm around those circulating the petition and, to intimidate, have been known to follow petitioners home.

In a blocking campaign against a recall petition in Michigan, the state Democratic Party hired an eight-time convicted felon to work as a “voter educator.” During the same campaign, the Michigan Association of Police Organizations called residents with a recorded message referring to the citizens gathering petition signatures as “extremists” and suggesting that the recall effort was somehow “illegal.”

Nebraska United, a group opposing a measure to end racial and gender preferences, ran paid advertisements warning citizens not to sign petitions, peddling the fear that signers “could be at risk for identity theft, robbery, and much worse.”

In Arizona, By Any Means Necessary, a Michigan-based group, pestered anti-preference petitioners, labeling them as “outsiders.” Videos on YouTube show BAMN’s out-of-state blockers offering to end their stalking of petitioners, if the petitioner would turn over petitions, with the legal signatures of Arizona voters, to be destroyed by BAMN.

These on-the-ground blocking efforts may remind one of the bad old days, of Pinkertons and worse. Such attempts to prevent the process of voting are indeed threats to democratic action. But the bigger danger remains the government itself.

I know this firsthand. Last year I was indicted — along with Rick Carpenter, the measure’s proponent, and Susan Johnson, the head of National Voter Outreach, a petition management company — for my work to place a Taxpayer Bill of Rights amendment on the Oklahoma ballot.

Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson seeks to imprison us for 10 years on a charge of conspiracy to defraud the state. He says we violated the rules by hiring non-Oklahoma residents to gather signatures. Never mind that those managing the petition drive followed the rules as explained to them by state officials.

We are innocent. And, notably, both our alleged guilt and obvious innocence may be rendered moot as the very law undergirding Edmondson’s prosecution is being challenged as unconstitutional in another case. However, this ordeal has been frightening — for us and for other citizens wishing to initiate change.

Blocking; threats; specially enacted laws — against this war of “shock and awe,” can citizens still prevail?

Only if we keep our slingshot ready at hand.

Paul Jacob is president of Citizens in Charge, a pro-initiative group, and a senior adviser at the Sam Adams Alliance, a national network of citizens seeking accountable government.