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The Initiative Process: Direct Democracy at its Finest The process of direct democracy in the Elicited States is not as inclusive as one might tend to believe. Being one of the world’s most democratic nations, it is strange that the U. S. Is one of the only nations to have no direct democracy at the federal level. To clarify, direct democracy is the process in which citizens of a given nation or state have the means to self-govern by directly voting on policy issues(Silvia 2).
Although at the federal level direct democracy is irrelevant, the same cannot be said at the state level in the U. S. Where direct democracy can be found in a variety of ways and has been in use for over a century. Focusing on State level direct democracy, three distinct types Of direct democracy exist in the American States: The initiative process, the use of referendums and the availability of the recall. The initiative process will be the focus of this paper due its popularity and two distinct forms.
With the objectives of the initiative process being to allow citizens the opportunity to self govern, it is interesting to examine these two types of initiatives and see where they are most prevalent and effective. The initiative process is the most dominate form of direct democracy at the state level with 24 states allowing for it to happen (Initiative, Referendum and Recall Two types of initiative process exist: direct initiative and indirect initiative.
The direct initiative process can be viewed upon as the citizens taking government into their own hands and proposing new laws or policies to be directly decided on by the citizens, not politicians. Direct, is the primary means of direct democracy across the county due to its complete bypassing of the state legislature, whereas indirect democracy requires no voting on behalf of the tizzies, rather just approval by the state legislature.
To better understand how the initiative process works, a breakdown of the process in which citizens initiate proposals onto the state ballot or to the state legislature must be undertaken. It is also important to note that no two states deal with the initiative process in the same manner. For example in California, the initiative process is solely direct, with the elimination of indirect initiatives occurring in 1966. (Initiative, Referendum and Recall ) California again provides for an excellent example of how the direct initiative process works.
A proponent of a reticular statutory proposal only needs $200 to file a proposal and then it is submitted to the office of the Attorney General for titling. It is then up to the Secretary of State to approve it for circulation to the citizens. If permitted for circulation, the proponent of the statutory proposal must gather signatures from 5% of the total number of votes in the last gubernatorial election. Once the signatures are collected and accepted by the Secretary Of State, the proposal is drafted onto the ballot for direct voting. Silvia 5 ) Compared to Ohio, where the indirect initiatives are the primary means of statutory reports, California is highly supportive of direct democracy. That however, does not mean that all circulated proposal in California are passed. For example, from 1912 to 2000, over 1 ,OHO initiatives have been circulated with roughly 50 actually being passed. (Siva 5 ) However accepted direct democracy is, these figures still show how much citizens invest in their elected officials to deem what is ballot worthy or not.
Moving onto indirect democracy brings us back to Ohio. The key difference again between direct and indirect initiative measures lies with the exclusion of the state legislature n direct. In Ohio, proposal dealing with statutory issues are solely dealt with indirectly by the citizens. What this means is that the state legislatures can amend the proposal or even repeal it if they find it necessary. Does this constitute as direct democracy?
If it weren’t for the ability for the citizens of Ohio to re-propose the initiative an unlimited number of times the answer would be no and Ohio would be consider to have no forum of direct democracy. Again it is important to remember that no two states deal with the initiative process in the same manner. Whereas California solely relies on erect initiative and Ohio predominantly favors indirect initiatives for Statutory matters, Massachusetts relies on indirect initiatives that are not limited to a single subject.
What this means is that the proponents of a given initiative are not limited in their proposal to a signal issue, rather they have more discretion as to what and how they propose there initiative. The result of no limits on subject matter vary, but can be directly related to the high number of initiatives circulated in Massachusetts(eliminative, Referendum and Recall The effects of the initiative process on direct democracy have made absentia improvements in many states in regards to the ability of citizens to self govern.
As politics become more partisan in nature, only time will tell if initiative process will ever penetrate the federal government. For now though, it is clear to see that direct democracy in the forum Of direct and indirect initiatives have come a long way since there inception in the early 20th century. As the population becomes more educated and vested in their government, direct democracy will continue to promote self autonomy at the state level.