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Diana Fleetwood O’Brien remembers

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Diana Fleetwood O’Brien remembers Ed & Joyce:

I don’t really have anything worthy of being in the book. But I’ll tell you what I remember. I have a fond memory of sitting next to Ed at a meeting, and him passing me a note. I don’t remember what it said, but I responded by cribbing something out of National Lampoon and wrote back, “Phuc Yieu.” He looked very amused and wrote back in the same vein. Then for the rest of that meeting we amused ourselves insulting each other with fake Vietnamese obscenities. I know you had to be there, but Ed was always such a hoot. And I think you are conveying that quite well in your treatment.

Also, a few little additions, on pg. 6, I also worked with and knew the Koupals in the early days, in 1972 & 3. Dwayne regularly trucked in his high school students to do Lobby work and I was one of those. I’ve gathered many a signature and remember Ed’s signature-gathering orientation. I remember he said as the momentum got rolling to hand the person a pen; that once the pen was in their hand the signature was pretty much in the bag. I remember gathering signatures one day with him and Joyce at a Gemco. I got sent to the snack bar for coffee and was having trouble carrying it. Ed advised me not to look at it, and I found out that’s the trick to carrying drinks. I was 17.

I also did typing at the Lobby headquarters on Western, and I recall Ed had a TV on downstairs during the Watergate hearings. A handful of us heard it live when Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of the White House tapes. I remember Ed saying, “Do you want to know what a sick Republican looks like? That’s a sick Republican.” I can’t remember who that was though, maybe Lowell Weicker. Was he a Republican?

I recall hearing Ed and Joyce saying that during the Recall Ronald Reagan days their house had been shot at. Does anyone else remember that?

Also, I remember Ed used to call Evelle Younger “Evil Younger.” That was Ed. And Ed appeared at some debate or talk show or something with Pete Schabarum, who mispronounced Koupal in some way. When it was Ed’s turn, he called Pete Schabarum “Mr. Shooboomboom.” Really, no one ever got the upper hand of Ed in a public appearance.

 

Common Sense Opeds, Library

Let’s Micro-Energize

ON THE GRID OR OFF THE GRID 

Let’s Micro-Energize

Our energy should encourage small, close-to-home sources

San Francisco Chronicle

Sunday, February 25, 2001

Dwayne Hunn

WHEN THE GREAT Depression drained the nation, its people supported the building of our largest public power company – Tennessee Valley Authority’s massive 28,501-megawatt string of dams and power plants. The people traded stripped mountain sides for coal. The people embraced energy-conserving Daylight Savings Time and kept the home fires burning low – while conserving and recycling everything from paper to rags to cooking grease. Everyone worked long and hard, hoping good times would return, while producing a mountain of war-winning industrial stuff.

Today, the nation is more peopled than then, more depleted of easily dug, drilled or dammed energy sources, and more environmentally concerned, wealthy and technologically stuffed.

Today, the average home uses 1.5 kilowatts of power, the average business, 10 kilowatts. Today, we build nuclear power plants that generate a million times more juice than a single home needs. Today, many homes could generate enough power for their own needs – and that is where our energy should go.

To address the state’s energy shortage, our Get-Your-Volts Guv must return to the energy pioneers’ principles:

— Generate and co-generate locally: Thomas Edison envisioned a dispersed energy system where individual businesses generated their own power. By 1890, Edison had installed more than 1,700 small-scale electricity-generating plants.

Early in the 20th century, more than half of the electricity generated in the United States was generated by industrial facilities producing their own power, reusing waste heat and selling excess power to nearby customers.

— Technology breeds independence: By the 1920s, thanks to transformer and alternating and direct current technological breakthroughs, our nation had moved toward centralized, interconnected power traveling over long distances. Today, that system leaves once powerful California staggering. Yet, ironically, breakthroughs in photovoltaic “transformer” technology can provide us with clean, ample and independent power. Joe Sixpack’s south-facing roof can generate most of his power needs.

— Move to appropriately sized generators: Between the 1980s and 1998, the average generating capacity of a newly built U.S. power plant shrank from 600 megawatts to 21 megawatts. Gray Davis (as point man for states facing similar energy dilemmas) will be pressured to speed-build some big new power plants. However, if he follows the national trend in power-plant construction, he will allow not TVA-sized generators but small and dispersed plants, and indeed, has already allocated $30 million in incentives to get small plants online by July. Small is becoming both cost effective and beautiful.

California’s current major power sources are typical of many states (see chart at right). Davis needs to lead California, and ultimately the nation, toward energy sustainability by encouraging the use of the lightly used renewable energy resources (wind, solar, small hydroelectric, geothermal, biomass and micro-turbine generated power, which make up some 12 percent of California’s current energy mix. Doing so may also conserve blowing gigawatts of hot air between competing interest groups.

How? By:

— Continuing to educate Californians about energy alternatives and conservation, even in moderately-climed California, where per capita energy use ranks us 47th among states.

— Providing and better publicizing more tax, business and research incentives to develop and use solar, wind, micro-turbine, fuel cell or other appropriate energy sources. Doing so will allow these cutting-edge energy businesses to invest more brain power and capital in developing better, cheaper products that more citizens will buy.

— Continuing to simplify the process that allows residences and businesses to sell their excess solar, wind and other micro-generated power into the utilities’ power grid.

— Innovating beyond the current subsidized energy programs for low-income residents. By partnering with businesses to fund a program that uses California Conservation Corps members in disadvantaged neighborhoods to assemble photovoltaic generating systems and/or solar water pre-heaters for residences and businesses with south-facing rooftops.

— Using his bully pulpit to drive home the advantages of a micro-energized society.

Citizens can help by practicing energy conservation and by:

— Pushing for governmental policies at local, state and federal levels that provide incentives for every home, business and new residential or commercial development to have efficient insulation, thermal pane (and open-able) windows, and to incorporate solar, microturbine, wind or other energy-generating systems.

— Involving yourself in the issue. Don’t imitate the ignorant frog who, when placed in warming water, loses the energy to jump out before he’s boiled.

— Demanding that your future is more reliant on simple, close-to-home sources of energy. This means fighting the idea that huge power plants stringing costly transformers everywhere is the best way to stay juiced.

— Investing, as a small investor, in good micropower ventures. You’ll be in good company – check out where aeronautical companies, auto companies, Bill Gates and mega power suppliers, such as Enron, who quietly recognize the future, are investing.

Tomorrow’s California should reflect tomorrow’s nation – millions of photovoltaic-covered southern rooftops; windmills sprouting on farms, prairies and passes; refrigerator-sized micro-energy generators quietly whistling in places like Silicon Valley; trains and buses fuel-cell powered and charged by photovoltaics; hydro-energy collectors capturing the energy of waves and currents surging through deep ocean caverns, such as those below the Golden Gate Bridge.

When politicians mouth let there be a thousand points of light, that people should be responsible for their own, that America does not want Big Government dictating, that creative Americans will find away, that people want the freedom to choose and that they trust the people. Tell them, “Live the words. Implement policies that make it easier to creatively, responsibly and cost effectively generate our own points of light.”

MICRO POWER SOURCES

— Wind power, with its fiberglass technologies, advanced electronics and aerodynamics, is the world’s fastest-growing energy source, increasing 24 percent annually worldwide through the 1990s. Germany currently supplies 2 percent of its own total energy needs with wind power; Denmark, 7 percent. Wind turbines are now directly competitive with new gas-fired plants in some regions of the United States, according to the U.S. Dept. of Energy.

— Solar / photovoltaic power is the world’s second-fastest growing energy source. Advances in technology have made rooftop solar collectors and photovoltaic generators economical: In 1980, the world price for a watt of photovoltaic power was $22 and about 30 megawatts were shipped. By 1999, the price had dropped to $3.50 a watt and 1,200 megawatts went to market. These small systems, marketed by firms like BP Solarex, Astropower and Kyocera, typically generate two to five kilowatts each.

— Microturbines, which generate less than 10 megawatts, but can be installed in commercial and residential buildings. A number of firms are bringing microturbines to market.

— Fuel cells, electromagnetic devices that combine hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity and water, are coming. The past decade has yielded designs that could lead to far lower costs. Thanks to a joint project of Mazda, DaimlerChrysler and the Nippon Mitsubishi Oil Co. and the Japanese government, test runs of fuel cell vehicles began this month on Japan’s roads.

Source: Dwayne Hunn

Mill Valley land development consultant Dwayne Hunn has guided solar projects through the development process and worked with Jerry Brown’s California Conservation Corps and on the People’s Lobby Clean Environment Initiative.

Library

Ballot Boxing

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Raising the nation’s public policy IQ…Adding the National Initiative to Democracy’s Toolbox.
Ballot Boxing

By John Maggs, National Journal

© National Journal Group Inc.

Friday, June 30, 2000

If you’re looking for an interesting place to spend Election Day this year, consider watching the returns in Arizona. The state has backed a Democrat for President exactly once since 1948. Even this far out from Election Day, hardly anyone says that George W. Bush can lose this GOP stronghold, especially with Sen. John McCain of Arizona on his side. Well-known Democrats have shied away from taking on Sen. Jon Kyl, the state’s popular first-term Republican, and politicians from both parties are forgoing challenges to House members, since redistricting after the 2000 census will add two House seats. The only competitive House race will be for the seat of Tucson Republican Jim Kolbe, but most expect him to win — he’s weathered rougher moments, such as his 1996 revelation that he is gay.  Ballot initiatives to bypass gridlocked lawmakers are becoming increasingly popular. But to David Broder & Co., plebiscites subvert the role of legislators as democracy’s true traffic cops.

Oh yes, and voters in Arizona this fall will probably get to decide whether to abolish all state and local income taxes, decriminalize most drugs, end bilingual education, and perhaps legalize prostitution. Arizona is one of 24 states that allows lawmaking through ballot initiative. This method of “direct democracy” has come to play a major role in Arizona and often overshadows the Legislature’s activities and the governor’s policies. As usual, the lineup of possible ballot questions is generating a lot more interest than the lineup of politicians. If Arizona’s ballot agenda for 2000 sounds radical, most political observers consider this a slow year for initiatives. In 1998, Arizona voters approved a sweeping campaign finance reform, took a stab at legalizing marijuana for medical purposes, and approved an initiative opposed bitterly by environmentalists that prevents the legislature from imposing limits on suburban sprawl.

Elsewhere this election year, voters will weigh initiatives on many of the most controversial issues of the moment — gun control, school choice, genetically modified foods, and preserving “open spaces,” to name just a few. Indeed, over the past 20 years or so, there has been an undeniable boom in state ballot initiatives and referenda. (An initiative is placed on the ballot by a petition of citizens, and a referendum is generally put on the ballot by the legislature.) Most people connect this boom to California’s Proposition 13, a 1978 tax-cutting initiative that spawned many imitators. Since then, initiatives have become more numerous, ambitious, diverse, and far-reaching. And they have become more successful — in the 1990s, initiatives passed about 25 percent more often than they did in previous decades. (See the chart) Polls show that the public overwhelmingly supports the idea of initiatives. Depending on how survey questions are phrased, between two-thirds and three-fourths of respondents want the option to vote directly on laws, a proportion that is about the same in states that permit initiatives as in those that do not.

Despite its popular approval, a powerful backlash is building against ballot initiatives. Propelled by two successful books and the warnings of a number of historians and political commentators, an expanding group of critics argues that initiatives are causing unpredictable and unaccountable changes in society, crippling state legislatures, and undermining the very structure of representative government in the United States.

David vs. the Gilded Goliaths

The event that has most fed this backlash was the publication in April of Democracy Derailed, by Washington Post columnist David S. Broder. Broder became interested in initiatives in 1997 while doing what he is famous for — chewing up a lot of shoe leather while traveling the country to investigate how big trends affect little people. After a swing through Oregon and California to look into recent initiatives there, Broder came away unsettled. In the book’s first chapter, “A Republic Subverted,” Broder writes:

“A new form of government is spreading in the United States. It is alien to the spirit of the Constitution and its careful system of checks and balances. Though derived from a reform favored by Populists and Progressives as a cure for special-interest influence, this method has become the favored tool of millionaires and interest groups that use their wealth to achieve their own policy goals — a lucrative business for a new set of political entrepreneurs.

“Exploiting the public’s disdain for politics and distrust of politicians, it is now the most uncontrolled and unexamined arena of power politics. It has given the United States something that seems unthinkable — not a government of laws, but laws without government.”

Broder’s subtitle is Initiative Campaigns and the Power of Money, and this is the crux of his warning. Using well-known examples, such as California’s recent initiative on bilingual education and the initiatives in a dozen states to legalize marijuana, Broder argues that millionaires and moneyed interests have come to dominate the initiative process, and can dictate outcomes. Because initiatives bypass the time-consuming steps normally associated with legislation, they advance ideas and proposals without, in Broder’s words, the “complex matrix of procedures designed to require the creation of consensus before the enactment of laws.”

As a result, many quirky ideas (in Broder’s view), such as banning bilingual education, are helped onto the ballot by millionaires such as Ron Unz, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur who accomplished this feat in California. Wealthy interests then spend their millions on media campaigns that, Broder says, are less deliberative than the legislative process, and thus less illuminating for voters. Broder uncovers a growing industry of political-initiative companies that he alleges are helping to pump up demand for initiatives, which are now a $250-million-a-year business. Part of that business is paying signature-gatherers a commission for each name they get on a petition. Jim Kolbe said he was approached recently by one of these paid petitioners in Arizona. “He said he was getting $1.25 per signature, that he was doing it for bar money,” said Kolbe. “I’m not sure that this was the kind of citizen’s process that people intended.”

Democracy Derailed has sold well for its genre, but this doesn’t begin to gauge its impact. In scores of excerpts, reviews, adulatory articles by fellow columnists, and television and radio interviews, Broder’s thesis, helped by his prominence as the dean of political commentators, has reached a wider audience. Also aiding the Broder cause is another book that makes much the same argument about the impact of initiatives, this time in California. Paradise Lost by Peter Schrag, the former editorial page editor of The Sacramento Bee, argues that Proposition 13 and other initiatives have played a dominant role in the erosion of California’s schools, infrastructure, and quality of life since the 1970s. Much worse than the reduction in property taxes enacted by Proposition 13 were the restrictions the measure put on future tax increases. Schrag says that this played a central role in the deterioration of public education in the state. And the curbs on property taxes have spurred local jurisdictions to encourage unwise commercial development in order to pump up sales taxes. This new development, in turn, is contributing to sprawl.

Subsequent initiatives, Schrag says, have further hamstrung local governments from raising taxes to fund education, infrastructure, and social programs. In an interview, Schrag said that California’s yawning inequalities of wealth and income have been reinforced by the initiative process, which gives a dwindling majority of upper- and middle-class whites a veto over expanding government meant to help the growing number of poor Hispanics, blacks, and Asian-Americans. In this way, initiatives tend to strip away minority rights, which are an essential goal of representative government, Schrag argues.

Broder’s and Schrag’s disquiet over ballot initiatives seems to be shared widely in the political establishment. Many people who are critical of money’s rising importance in politics second Broder’s view that money has also perverted the initiative process; even some defenders of money in politics feel that way. Bradley Smith, newly sworn in as a member of the Federal Election Commission, favors scrapping most restrictions on political funding for elections but is sympathetic with those who think that big money has taken over initiative campaigns. Kolbe, who hasn’t read the Broder book but does have more than 20 years of experience in Arizona politics, says that he is worried about how “money has taken over” initiatives in his state.

“There definitely is a place for ballot initiatives,” said Kolbe, who served in the state legislature before coming to Washington. “That said, there is a great danger in overuse. All you need nowadays is a lot of money. That’s not good.”

Origin Of Species

Initiatives might seem like a throwback to the early days of American democracy, but they are a relatively modern invention. Imported from Switzerland about 100 years ago, their adoption here was the work of two political movements — populism, a farmer-worker campaign against corporate interests that began in the late 1800s, and progressivism, which came in the early 20th century and was driven mainly by middle-class voters who wanted to curb corruption.

Broder forcefully argues that the direct democracy represented by initiatives was considered and rejected by the framers of the Constitution as a threat to minority rights and stable government. He quotes Fisher Ames, a delegate from Massachusetts to the Constitutional Convention, as writing that direct democracy “would be very burdensome, subject to factions and violence; decisions would often be made by surprise, in the precipitance of passion…. It would be a government not of laws, but of men.”

Broder’s most voluble defender, however, is James Madison, a dominant force at the convention and a future President. Under “pure democracy” without a legislature, “there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention, have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property, and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

In making his case for how money dominates initiative campaigns, Broder relies on a series of examples from the West Coast. California Indian tribes spent $66 million to win a ballot measure on expanding casino gambling in the state, while gambling interests from neighboring Nevada spent $25 million trying in vain to defeat the measure. Ward Connerly, owner of a consulting firm, gathered money from conservative organizations to finance a successful initiative banning affirmative action in California state government. Ron Unz, the high-tech millionaire, provided $650,000 of the $976,000 spent to win an end to bilingual education in the state. And Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, in Washington state, footed all of the $10 million tab for an initiative to get partial public funding of a new stadium for the football team he owns, the Seattle Seahawks.

Considering how important the argument is to his book, it is surprising that Broder ignores the academic analysis of money’s role in initiative campaigns. In fact, almost all of the work by political scientists undermines his thesis. Broder makes a nod to the academicians by citing one leading researcher who rejects “the allegation that economic interest groups buy policy outcomes through the direct legislative process.” But he dismisses this in favor of his more anecdotal approach: “That conclusion does not jibe with what I observed — or what I was told by practitioners in the initiative industry.”

Much of the most important work in assessing the importance of money in initiative campaigns was done by Daniel Lowenstein, a law professor at the University of California (Los Angeles). As summarized by another researcher in this area, Elisabeth Gerber: “Money matters when it is spent to kill an initiative. And money is necessary to get an initiative on the ballot. But it is not sufficient to win — even when there is a big advantage in spending vs. the no side.”

For Shaun Bowler, a researcher of ballot initiatives who teaches at the University of California (Riverside), this is a crucial distinction:  Initiatives are a more conservative method of lawmaking than Broder and others allege. “Keep in mind that initiatives are all about choosing between some change and the status quo,” said Bowler. And until the 1998 elections, the status quo won most of the time, with the success rate of voter-sponsored initiatives averaging about 40 percent. This principle applies to one example featured prominently in Broder’s book – the “paycheck protection” initiative in California, in which business interests from inside and outside the state tried to force unions to obtain written permission from their members before using dues for political purposes. Unions, in the end, spent twice what business spent and were able to defeat the measure. “To me, this only shows that it is a lot easier to stop initiatives with money than to pass them,” Bowler said.

In her book The Populist Paradox, Gerber studied 161 initiatives in eight states over six years, and analyzed the role of money in those efforts. Her conclusion:

“It is a mistake to equate money with influence in the context of direct legislation. Without a doubt, organized interests, especially business interests, now play a greater financial role in the direct legislation process than at any time in history. Big spending, however, does not imply big influence. To pass initiatives and referendums, interest groups must be able to mobilize an electoral majority. As wealthy interests such as the insurance industry, trial lawyer associations, and tobacco companies have recently demonstrated after expensive defeats at the ballot box, if voters do not like what initiative proponents are selling, not even vast amounts of campaign spending can get them to vote for a new policy.”

Money Is A Many-Sided Thing

Gerber’s central conclusion is that “the relationship between money and influence is far more complex and more limited than many observers believe.”  For example, in the Indian gambling initiative cited by Broder, was the outcome influenced more by the fact that Indians spent twice as much as the opponents of the measure, or because the opposition came from interests outside the state? Or were voters motivated by a sense of guilt about the past treatment of Indians? Gerber cites another example: an effort by the tobacco industry to push through a California initiative that would have replaced tough, local anti-smoking ordinances with a looser, statewide standard. Although initial support for the initiative was high, once it became known that the primary sponsor was Philip Morris Cos., opposition surged and it was rejected by a wide margin. “Philip Morris spent much more than the anti-smoking side, but in the end it didn’t matter,” Gerber said in an interview.

Gerber’s research backs up these examples. She found that when funding came primarily from “economic interests” (business and professional groups), the initiatives passed 31 percent of the time; when funding came from “citizen interests” (which include rich individuals such as Ron Unz), initiatives passed 50 percent of the time. The experts call this “statistically significant.” For those worried that big business will come to dominate the initiative process, there is no indication so far that this is happening.

Broder says he is familiar with Gerber’s research, and suggests that he didn’t take it more seriously because he thought her category of “citizen interests” (including people like Unz) was too broad. Broder wants to group Unz with “economic interests,” because his influence as a citizen is much larger than that wielded by citizens with less money. But where to draw the line? Influence in politics always varies widely from citizen to citizen.  What if it were revealed that most of the funding for an initiative came from 100 well-heeled people? Would they still be citizens, Gerber asks? “We know that money matters in all kinds of politics,” she said. Broder seems to long for a process where everyone has roughly the same amount of influence, but such an egalitarian process has never existed, Gerber said.

In focusing their criticisms on the role of money in the initiative process, Broder and his fellow analysts fail to show that money has been any less corrupting on the alternative they prefer — representative legislatures.  This is certainly not the opinion of most Americans, who, polls say, overwhelmingly favor radical campaign finance reform; or the millions of people who voted for John McCain this spring, and consistently register their disapproval with the way that moneyed interests influence events in Congress. “I think there is a naiveté about this position that money has taken over initiatives,” said Bowler. “Where hasn’t it taken over?”

Broder is also sure that initiatives tend to involve much less deliberation than the legislative process, and thus they yield less well considered results. “It doesn’t always work that way, but I think it does most of the time,” said Broder, in an interview. “There is discussion, there are hearings.” Again, Bowler sees this as “a little too much of a generalization.” On the one hand, “there is an idealization” of the way that legislatures make laws “that doesn’t fit with reality. I think Broder’s got a little bit of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” If legislatures were more effective at thoroughly debating the great issues of the day, then that might help raise the abysmal ratings of their job performance, he said.

Kolbe echoes Broder’s complaint about how little deliberation goes into initiatives. “They are all sound bites. You don’t have a candidate there saying, ‘This is what I stand for.’ You have media and spin. The voters are completely reliant on this” because the legalistic wording of the initiatives themselves is usually so hard to understand, he said.

But Gerber says that this is an oversimplification of the often-complex role that initiatives play in fostering debate. As an example, she cited California’s Proposition 187, which restricted education and social services for illegal aliens. “Polls showed that Prop. 187 was not the law that a majority of voters wanted, but it passed anyway because a majority felt that something had to be done.” As the law went through the courts, and was briefly defended by California’s new Democratic governor, there was a debate about what should be the proper policy toward illegal immigrants “that there would never have been otherwise,” she said.

For supporters of ballot initiatives, it is this latter point that is ignored by the critics. As one of those critics, Jim Kolbe, pointed out, “There is definitely an important place for ballot initiatives. They are an important escape valve to allow citizens to press for an idea when they are faced with recalcitrant legislatures. And that is often the case.”

Bypassing Legislatures

When Broder cites initiatives as a threat to the power of legislatures, he is exactly right — they are almost always the tool of some interest that believes it cannot get a positive result though the legislature. Broder’s assumption is that this end run is illegitimate, but this argument “puts too much faith in the effectiveness of legislatures,” Gerber said. For example, Broder laments the fact that Unz and his money were able to get bilingual education on the ballot in California, but does not address the fact that “in this case, and many others, there are many controversial issues that legislatures just don’t want to deal with,” Gerber said.

One state legislator who is unafraid of the challenge that initiatives pose to representative government is state Sen. Chris Cummiskey of Arizona. “The growth in the use of the initiative in Arizona is due to the inactivity of the legislature,” said Cummiskey, a Democrat. “The public has been dissatisfied, and they have been forced to compel us to act.” Like Gerber, Cummiskey says that initiatives play a catalytic role in a complex process that involves the legislature. “With tobacco, taxes, education and growth, these are all matters that the legislature has been forced to deal with” because of pressure exerted by the initiatives process, he said.

Often this fact can be buried in what seems like the kind of big-money power play that initiative critics deplore. Cummiskey described an initiative to be voted on this fall that would commit almost all of the state’s share of the tobacco settlement to fund health care. “Now this was entirely financed by the hospital companies. Some point to that as anathema to democracy, but the fact was that the Legislature was doing nothing, and couldn’t come up with a plan.” With the pressure of this deadline the legislation is now beginning to move, he said.

There is a tendency among the initiative critics to disagree with the results of the most far-reaching votes. Schrag clearly sees every tax-limiting initiative in California as another crack in the foundation of the state and does not have much patience for those who felt in 1978 that government was growing uncontrollably. Broder abhors term limits, disagrees with the way Proposition 13 restricts tax increases, and makes clear that he believes the ban on bilingual education was an improper abridgement of the rights of a minority by the majority of Californians. In all cases though, Broder’s sympathies lie with legislators. He describes a California court fight over a term limit initiative: “The only people who had no voice in the outcome were the elected officials of the state. They were mere spectators on the sidelines, waiting for the verdict.” There is little recognition in this phrase for the deep dissatisfaction that voters have registered about their elected representatives. He seems not to have considered the possibility that the performance of legislatures might warrant a restriction, or a bypass, of their powers.

Broder exalts James Madison’s side of the framing of the Constitution, but most historians portray a dynamic tension between Madison’s views of representative government and Thomas Jefferson’s view that “I know of no safer depository of the ultimate power of society but the people themselves.” The Jeffersonian ideal of participatory democracy has influenced the United States from the start, beginning with the Constitution’s provision for a popular vote to rewrite that document, if need be, in a Constitutional Convention. Later, the ideal of greater participation and access led to important amendments to that original document, including the direct election of Senators and the indirect popular election of the President. “I think that’s a weak part of [Broder’s argument],” said Bowler. “If he’s saying, ‘Look, the framers didn’t think of it,’ then we never would have had a Civil Rights Act.”

While Broder laments the way that state initiatives have chipped away at the power of legislatures, he reserves his sternest warning for the potential they have for transforming federal government. In his final pages, he notes the popularity of Ross Perot’s 1992 proposal for “electronic democracy,” and the power of the Internet for making that idea a reality. Will the runaway popularity of initiatives in the 50 states lead to the thing that Broder fears most — a national initiative process, and a subsequent alteration in the system of checks and balances enshrined in the Constitution?

Notwithstanding Broder’s sense of alarm, it is hard to find any groundswell of support for national initiatives and referenda. In fact, populists and progressives have been trying to advance the initiative process in Washington just as long as they have in the states, with absolutely no success. In his book Congress & the People: Deliberative Democracy on Trial, Donald R. Wolfensberger, the director of The Congress Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said that while “eighteen states adopted the initiative and referendum between 1895 and 1918,” momentum at the national level never developed. The first proposal for a constitutional amendment to allow for a national initiative came from Sen. William Peffer, a Populist Party member from Kansas who sported a white flowing beard and who was once described by reformer Theodore Roosevelt as “a well-meaning, pin-headed, anarchistic crank.” The last lawmaker to propose a national initiative amendment was a second-term Missouri congressman named Richard A. Gephardt, who decided in 1980 that congressional leadership was out of touch with the people. Twenty years later, now Minority Leader Gephardt has no plans to revive that constitutional amendment, said a spokeswoman.

Considering all of the gee-whiz excitement lately about the Internet, Broder seems to be one of the few people today who can even remember Ross Perot’s plan for “cyberdemocracy.” Part of the final chapter of Democracy Derailed is occupied with a May 1999 conference in Washington of initiative supporters, who spun out their visions for national plebiscites. The biggest name at the conference was lame-duck Gov. Kirk Fordice of Mississippi, who described the audience as “the greatest collection of mavericks in the world.” Broder faithfully reports how ragtag this band of anti-nuclear activists, libertarians, and assistant professors was, but doesn’t make it sound like they were about to succeed at shaking the foundations of the Republic.

Maybe there’s a reason that initiatives grow more popular at the state level but don’t get much traction in Washington. Perhaps initiatives are part of a much broader trend of devolving power to the states. The federal government has always struggled with the task of fashioning a uniform approach to controversial issues that would be acceptable in most parts of a very diverse Republic. Congress ducks controversial issues such as bilingual education, gun control, and drug legalization, in part, because of the impossibility of ever creating a consensus on the issues. Broder is right to point out that creating consensus is one of the great achievements of representative democracy, and that the initiatives process can run roughshod over this goal. But when legislatures will not or cannot tackle important issues (including the limiting of their own powers) it seems inevitable that some alternative form of government will try to fill the void.

James MacGregor Burns, a historian and scholar of leadership, shares Broder’s concern that ballot initiatives are an unaccountable method of making “laws without government.” But he concedes that the rise of

initiatives is a reflection of how the strength of leadership in our lawmaking institutions has suffered recently. “It is true that if there were more effective leadership, then there wouldn’t be as much interest in ballot initiatives,” Burns said. “But there is a vicious circle here,” in which initiatives can further undermine leadership, he added. “I worry about how to stop that cycle.”

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Source emailed from:

Initiative & Referendum Institute

1825 I Street, NW, Suite 400

Washington, DC 20006

202.429.5539 (office) 202.986.3001 (fax)

visit our websites at http://www.iandrinstitute.org and

http://www.ballotwatch.org
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Nixon v. Shrink 2000

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In Nixon v. Shrink (1/24/2000)  a Missouri Governmental PAC and a candidate for the Republican nominee for state auditor sought to enjoin the enforcement of the state’s contribution limitation statue on the grounds that it violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.  The campaign contribution limits ranged from $250 to $1,000 depending on office and constituency size and was adjusted for inflation in even numbered years since January 1995.

Arguments and reference to Buckley v. Valeo were numerous.   Buckley supported limiting individual contributions to any single candidate to $1,000. per election.  Buckley, however, struck down the law that called for a $1,000 annual ceiling on independent expenditures linked to specific candidates.  The Court found violations of the First Amendment in the expenditure regulations, but held the contribution restrictions constitutional.

The Court in reviewing Nixon found that “there is little reason to doubt that sometimes large contributions will work actual corruption of our political systems, and no reason to question the existence of a corresponding suspicion among voters.”

Continuing, the Court said: “Here, as in Buckley, ‘[t]here is no indication . . . that the contribution limitations imposed by the [law] would have any dramatic[ally] adverse effect on the funding of campaigns and political associations,’ and thus no showing that ‘the limitations prevented the candidates and political committees from amassing the resources necessary for effective advocacy.’ 424 U.S., at 21. The District Court found here that in the period since the Missouri limits became effective, ‘candidates for state elected office [have been] quite able to raise funds sufficient to run effective campaigns,’ 5 F. Supp. 2d, at 740, and that ‘candidates for political office in the state are still able to amass impressive campaign war chests.’”

Therefore, the Court found that the Buckley decision governs in the Nixon v. Shrink case.  In other words, the contribution limitations in Missouri are constitutional.  The Court also recognized that the perception that large money contributions receives a quid pro quo in our political system and that could undermine the integrity of and our political system itself.   In the Court’s words, “Congress could legitimately conclude that the avoidance of the appearance of improper influence ‘is also critical … if confidence in the system of representative Government is not to be eroded to a disastrous extent.’”

For a syllabus, full version or edited decision of Nixon v. Shrink go to:

http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/98-963.ZO.html

 

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U.S. Initiative can give us more clout

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Published in Marin Independent Journal, Sunday, January 24, 1999

A U.S. initiative can give us more clout

DWAYNE HUNN

INCESSANTLY, CONGRESSIONAL phones rang, faxes and e-mails flew. Americans thun­dered not over a maiming Asian war, all illegally conducted Central American war, or political party robbery and cover-up.

Nope, America responded to a soap opera splitting the G-string over the dictionary definition of’ “sexual relations.”

A zealous attack on a handful of sexual foreplays inspired most experienced Americans to say, “Let it lie.” That, however, didn’t stop a constitutional crisis over our representatives’ understand­ing of  “’high crimes and misde­meanors.”

Explicitly revealing the sex lives of public figures has, howev­er, advanced sex education well beyond the doll-faced Ken and Barbie level. Politics makes strange bedfellows. Supporters of a bifocaled and grown Ken named Starr have long opposed sex edu­cation in schools, yet they stand erectly by their man as he unzips what amounts to a $50 million sex cur­riculum that wows kids.

The thunderous debate should:

¨        Remind most Americans that common sense is not a prerequisite for holding office.

¨        Continue chipping away at the respect held for officeholders.

¨        Prepare America for a more European sexual at-tirade or a McCarthyist excursion into the personal lives of at least public officials.

¨        Make Americans wonder — if polls and communiques are ineffective in influencing our representa­tives: What additional tool will America need to make government more responsive?

With CNN, 24-hour radio and television news and talk shows, online interactive news, chat rooms, e-mail discourses, downloading government and ex­pert reports, instant books, sophisticated surveys, hard and electronic newspapers and magazines, Americans can validly wonder if today’s concerned and involved citizen can be more aware of issues than many elected representatives are.

Can it be that since our representatives’ work (talking to each other in endless committees and to their special-interest funders) deprives them of viewing TV soap operas, they now strain to create their own titillating soap rather than address the public’s needs?

A KGO radio talk-show caller recently said,  “Let’s recall these representatives who are so intent on im­peachment when we, the people, don’t want them doing that.”

The host replied that he didn’t think recalling U.S. representatives is possible. He is right. The people have the right to recall, referendum and initiative in about half the states including California, but not on the national level.

Perhaps this whole unbuyable soap-opera script will move the country closer to enacting a National Initiative, Referendum and Recall. If Congress feels that Social Security, health care, banking and educational reform, homelessness, poverty, food stamps, toxic cleanup, space exploration, balanced budgets, tax reform, fair trade, trade imbalances,

In an age when technology has put more options in people’s laps and laptops –from buying to investing in education — perhaps it’s time to do the same with our democratic government.

 jobs, drugs, crimes, merger mania, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, Russia’s plutonium stockpile, national and world economy, foreign aid, improvement of air, water and food quality, military budgeting and enhancements are not as important as arguing over a dismissed case of alleged ‘sex-harassment and a definition of sex, then perhaps Americans ought to add more legislative options to their firsthand powers.

In an age when technology has put more Options in people’s laps and laptops — from buying to investing in education — perhaps it’s time to do the same with our democratic government.

Would putting the tools of national initiative, referendum and recall in the hands of citizens across the country do more to raise the IQ level of our nation and its elected representatives?

Such a debate may find support from both sides of the impeachment aisle. For those who think Con­gress can’t think straight, a U.S. Initiative, Referendum and Recall offers representative government yet another tool to increase its responsiveness.

For those fundamentalists who want to purify America’s sexy and lying ways, it offers a mechanism whereby dedication, hard work and their national organization can produce initiatives, recalls and referenda that further their own agenda.

Dwayne Hunn, who lives in Mill Valley, works with and sits on the boards of People’s Lobby, dedicated to educating citizens on initiative, political and economic issues, and of Philadelphia II, dedicated to implementing the U.S. Initiative.

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History Behind 208 & 212

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San Diego Review December 1, 1996

History Behind 208 and 212

Watch what happened to much of former reforms be repeated in courts…

By Dwayne Hunn

California’s Fair Political  Practices Commission exists today thanks to People’s Lobby’s Political Reform Initiative of 1974, Prop 9, one of  the nation’s first and toughest campaign reform initiatives which  garnered about 70% of the vote.   Common Cause  and  Gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown wanted to launch their own campaign reform but grudgingly joined because People’s Lobby had experienced volunteer signature gatherers who had put measures on the ballot, while neither of them had done such.  Prop 9’s campaign spending limits were .07 and .09 cents per voter in the primary and general elections.  Had those limits been applied to the 1970 Gubernatorial General Election race between Democrat Jesse Unruh and Republic Ronald Reagan, Unruh would have had to cut out $368,448 and Reagan $1,590,026 of spending.

Be ready to watch what happened to much of the guts of the Political Reform Act of 1974 be repeated and reargued with new faces over the next few years with Proposition  208.  In 1977 Senator Holden repealed campaign spending limits with his Senate Bill 883.  By 1979 the California Supreme Court, ruling on the Fair Political Practices Commission v. Institute of Governmental Advocates, held that “the prohibition against lobbyist contributions to political campaigns…. is a substantial limitation on associational freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment and is invalid.” The California Court felt ‘compelled’ by the US Supreme Court’s 1976 Buckley v. Valeo in which the validity of  the provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) of 1971 were debated. The FECA limited political contributions by individuals to $1,000 for any candidate and $25,000 total.  The court held that the contribution limitations restrict the contributor’s freedom of association, “a basic constitutional freedom.”  This substantial limitation on  a lobbyist’s freedom of association may be upheld only if the “State demonstrates a sufficiently important interest and employs means closely drawn to avoid unnecessary abridgment of associational freedoms.”

The campaign limitations embodied in 208 will rise or fall based on  how:

¨       “sufficiently important” proponents’ attorneys make  the courts feel the need for campaign reform is, and

¨       “closely drawn” campaign spending limits are determined to be in the law,  so as not to infringe on Constitutional rights of free speech and association.

Proposition 208 with its “voluntary campaign spending limit” agreement that entices candidates by “doubling contribution limits”  probably has a higher probability of passing the courts “closely drawn” strictures than 212 would have.

The narrow defeat of  Prop 212 at least relieves us of reliving the history of  court arguments over which sections of  two similar 1988 campaign contribution limitation bills should prevail. Common  Cause’s  Prop 68, which called for taxpayer paid elections, and Senator Kopp and Assemblyman Johnson’s Prop 73, which banned taxpayer paid elections,  both won, with 53% and 57% respectively.  With Prop 73 in effect California campaign spending fell from $79.4 in 1988 to $52 million in 1990.     In 1992 the Federal court struck down the limits and 1992’s spending rebounded to $71.9 million,  and the courts held that Prop 68 campaign limits could not then replace Prop 73’s.

These will be interesting court times for more than just the Chicago Bulls and LA Lakers.

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Progressive Windmills $$$

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 San Diego Review October 1, 1996

Progressive Windmills $$$
 fistfullmoneyclipart

What progressives have trouble learning is how to build a money stream.

By Dwayne Hunn

Both major parties claim to be gung-ho for education, disgusted by  phony credit claiming,  and worthy of leading the world’s greatest bunch of citizens.  Yet both parties blow their best opportunity, their National Conventions,  to educate Americans on the complexities required to deal with world and national needs. Dumb and dumber party conventions operate as though they carry the Holy Grail in their ballyhooed words.  Although   educational standards have been slipping for decades, most thinking Americans,  and many dumbing down ones, know that there is not  a  pure,  quick-fix solution to any major problem.   Such fixes don’t exist for a little kid’s problem, why should such exist for 250 million or 5 billion mostly grown-up ones?

Shrinking Convention ratings support the thesis that dumbing down Americans   learn more about  improving their lives from Coach, Cosby, All in the Family and the San Diego Padres,  then from major parties.  Is there a  fix?  Imagine the Teach-in deep-pocketed  parties could throw with whiz-bang graphs, flip charts, multimedia portrayals….  the face-to-face, in-party debates that could inject a pulse into claims of “diversity”…  the economic analysis that could be graphically argued through portraying the potential effects of differing tax and spending programs…

Could  ratings go up with that kind of show?   Americans get a little smarter? Bet your sweet bippy.  Will that happen?  Don’t squander  any bippy.

Instead, California’s answer was the Alternative Media Convention (AMC), with 80 progressive groups convening a few streets from the Republican Convention to moan  about the state of  the world and, in some cases, teach.  Certainly what most of those groups had to say was  usually more educational and interesting then the  palaver of the major parties.   Unfortunately, four years from now most of  those Progressives will still not be heard outside their choir and some won’t even be around.  In fact, some aren’t around one month after the AMC.

What progressive groups have trouble learning,  while Republicans have the reputation (often mistakenly) for knowing well, is how to “build” a money stream.  Impractical Progressives (IPS) tend to do some research, learn some dastardly facts, shout about them, print them on paper or pixels, demand changes, and then expect the two major,  well-lobbied  parties to implement the fix.   A  “fix” is sometimes delivered, albeit usually well greased.  And the IPS shout-about cycle begins again, accompanied by a  more serious groveling for pocket change to sustain their refrain..

As one who played the non-profit crusader game and now sometimes consults for those do-gooders, I hope Impractical Progressives rub the economic scales from their  eyelids and brains.  Today’s rapidly changing  economic era requires  expensive media perception building.  It also requires an army of  do-gooders,  who can sustain themselves economically while fighting for their philosophical dream.  If you don’t build a revenue stream into your organization, how do you expect to feed your marching army?  If you can’t keep your army together for years, how do you expect to win against savvy, experienced, well-endowed warlords?

Between my AMC speaking engagement on the national initiative process, I spoke to about 24 groups about “building” an Excelent funding raising vehicle. Unfortunately, not many  even asked questions that indicated they understood the tricky economic future that faces them and their workers…

The preponderance of  statistics claims:  The American middle class is working more and getting less.  The richer are getting richer.  IPS pay attention  to your self proclaimed gripes. Then get a life…  Get an economic life for your organizations and  crusaders, so  you can afford the steeds you need to tilt with the windmill.  If you can’t or won’t do that, the breeze from fanned greenbacks will blow you away.

 

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Just more “confused fused clamor?”

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August 1, 1996 edition of San Diego Review newspaper

Just more “confused  fused clamor?”

By Dwayne Hunn                                                                 L

Initiative.  An honored American quality.  We used it to explore and tame a frontier, build infrastructure, agriculture, science, business and general prosperity that is the envy of the world.   We slip, fall, make mistakes, but over our 200+ years someone or some group initiates the rebound and pulls us back up.

The Big Bear lifted her leg and ‘sputnicked’ on us.  We initiated changes, let American ingenuity take over and  hibernated the stodgy Bear.  As American businesses lulled themselves into complacency ,   the Japanese used an American teamwork concept to build better quality products,.  Then the drugged American giant initiated  changes that some say has catapulted us back into the competitive lead.

Dissatisfaction.  Another honored American trait.  We use it to change  things we don’t like — monotonous labor, poor quality,  bullying neighbors, etc.   Historically,  it  has  compelled enough  AmeriCan-dos  to shut up and  fix  whatever it is we are bitching about.

What American bitches still needs fixing? If you tabulated the last several decades of polls,  the results would show that a healthy percentage of  Americans would like to  see their political institutions infused with some fresh  AmeriCan-do  initiative.

Of course, dissatisfaction with political institutions, like America’s can-do spirit, seems to be something ingrained in  our genes, or at least our jeans, as Alex DeTocqueville’s noticed in 1831-32.

No sooner do you set foot upon America ground, than you are stunned by a kind of tumult; a confused fused clamor is heard on every side; and a thousand simultaneous voices demand the satisfaction of their social wan.  Everything is in motion around you….. Meetings  are called for the sole purpose of declaring their disapprobation  of the conduct of the government; whilst in other assemblies, citizens salute the authorities of the day as the fathers of their country.

Today perhaps that level of political participation may not exist among the same proportion of the populace as it did  then, but at times you are reminded that the instinct still exists.   It was probably  in the jeans you saw in the anti-war and anti-government rallies and meetings of the 1960’s & 1970’s.  You  may be viewing that graying instinct as third, fourth and fifth parties organize today.

From the couch potato, who registers his time with a poll, to the activist, who  climbs his hook and ladder up the poll, the desire to improve government is  widespread.  However, all the techniques that improved our private sector’s inventiveness, quality control, or bottom line will not automatically  be useful in improving  our  government.  Of all the tools used to improve performance in both public or private sectors, good training and education seem the most reliable.  In the private sector, when workers are given responsibility and authority along with good training and education their productivity generally increases.

  1. What might that tell us we should do to improve America’s political institutions?

Perhaps, we should better train, educate and responsibly involve Americans in governance.

  1. How do we best train and educate Americans on how our political institutions should work?

Well, most grown-ups find their best education and training  comes from first-hand experiences.  So maybe we should more directly involve Americans in governing.

  1. Are we willing to take the chance on improving Americans first hand experiences in the workings of our political system if that means giving them more authority and responsibility, as we now do to improve some business performances?

If we are  willing to give a nation of Americans that responsibility, then the answer to these three questions lies in the word that  started this essay.  The “Initiative.”

In 1996 twenty-four states and the District of Columbia have the Initiative process.  In those states people have the opportunity to get off of their couches,   set up their hook and ladder and fight any political fire they  want. They  can craft legislation, create political strategy, confront and debate corporate executives or political officials.   They can experience first hand what it takes to win or lose, and their initiative creation has the potential to gain the voters’ authority, so that the citizenry  are directly responsible for the results.

Even though about half of the states have the  Initiative, Referendum and Recall process. the citizens of the United States as an entity do not.  People’s Lobby started the national initiative process movement in the mid-70’s. popularizing the concept across the  country from the doors of  an old, clunky yellow school bus.  Their efforts culminated with Senate hearings in 1977.  Since then three friendly groups, former United States Senator Mike Gravel’s United States Initiative, Former Vietnam Vet and initiative organizer Rick Arnold ‘s Initiative America and Barbara Vincent’s National Referendum Movement, are all working toward  offering all Americans  a national initiative process.

Many say it is a long overdue process.   Others argue it is too messy of a process.  Regardless, the philosophy behind giving the people a choice is solidly grounded in the thoughts of our founding fathers.   As James Madison said in:

 

 The      

      Federalists

            Papers

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence upon the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

The Founding Fathers and  Madison  sought  a balance between what he called a “mixed government” and “free government,”  based on their experiences with monarchy and democracy.

Are we in an age where the “primary control on the government” is still the people and the national initiative might be another good “auxiliary precaution(s)?”

Although the radical fringes, whose  stupid violence  eats  away the liberties of those in the vast middle, may disagree, we don’t labor under an authoritarian state today.  Many, however, rightfully complain that our various levels of government often fails to respond effectively to felt needs.  Consider how ineffectively  governments respond to property tax and campaign reform, nuclear plant safety, environmental safeguard  — then remember the roles statewide initiatives had to play to implement or force changes in those fields.

Wouldn’t, adding a national initiative process give us another tool to keep authoritarianism even further from out door step, albeit at the expense of making citizens even more unwieldy to deal with for slow or unresponsive elected officials?  Isn’t that “confused fused clamor (is) heard on every side; and a thousand simultaneous voices demand(ing) the satisfaction of their social wan” the lifeblood of democracy?

To many experts the Constitution, starting with the words, “We the People of the United States….” implies that  the Founding Fathers desired that instruments such as the Initiative process be available to the people.   Our founding fathers didn’t consider the comforts of the governments of  even elected representatives   as much as they considered the rights of the individuals.  As Harold Chase, editor of  The Constitution and What It Means Today,  states in analyzing the Constitution:

These stated objectives make clear the framers’ commitment to the proposition that government should serve to enhance the value and dignity of the individual, as opposed to the proposition to which authoritarian governments have traditionally adhered, that the individual’s highest duty is to serve the state.

Of course the tenth amendment buttresses that argument by  reminding all of  us  that:

“the powers not delegated to the United States . . . are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,”

The government wasn’t comfortable with the tumultuous protests and public reactions of the 60’s and 70’s  that in large stemmed from our Vietnam and civil rights policies.  Sometimes those protests turned violent.   Had we had the national initiative process as a tool in our Constitutional tool box, would the nation have been better or worse served?  Would beneficial results been obtained  more or less efficiently?  Would the nation have been better educated with or without the national initiative process?  Would the  availability of the process decreased the likelihood of violence?

Would  teachers, activists, anti-war actors, hippies and drop-outs have put more energy into qualifying a national initiative asking Americans to choose whether to drops bombs, build damns or let  the dominoes fall then in throwing barbs, blood and obscenities?    Would  Vietnam  have paralyzed and claimed so many American lives and split so many families had we had a national initiative process?  Would that initiative debate process have made us a smarter, healthier country than the process Americans had to go through to end that war?

If the existence of the national initiative process would have cut only one year and its costs from Vietnam, or similar stupid ventures in the future, would it have been, or will it be worth having in our future?

People’s Lobby  dozen word logo is  worth considering:

Final responsibility rests with the people

Therefore never is final authority delegated.

 

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Alaskan Lightening Bolts Twice at Supreme Court?

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San Diego Review July 1, 1996

 Alaskan Lightening Bolts Twice at Supreme Court?
By Dwayne Hunn

 Certiorari  is  a Latin term which in English practice became a  writ commanding inferior courts to return records for review by a higher court.   In 1925 Congress enacted the Judiciary Act to help lessen the Supreme Court’s work load, so the Supreme Court now  receives 4,000 – 5,000 annual requests for “certiorari” hearings.

The Court grants certiorari  only “where there are special and important reasons therefor.”   This amount to 10 to 15 percent of the certiorari petitions received in a given year. Ninety percent of the cases decided  annually by the Supreme Court started as a  writ of certiorari.

The Court’s work calendar usually runs from October to the end of June.  Rarely does the Court work into July, as it did in 1971 and 1974 when the Court dealt with the Pentagon Papers case and Nixon tapes, respectively.

Rarely does an individual bring more than one certiorari  issue to the Court.  However, in late June of 1996,  25 years after he  first appealed to the Court to allow the Pentagon Papers, which Daniel Ellsberg had leaked to him,  to be published by Beacon Press,  former Alaskan Senator Mike Gravel  (1969-81) is again tying  to appear before the  Supreme Court as a litigant.

Why? Because in 1995 the Washington State Supreme Court supported  its Attorney General in saying that its citizens didn’t have the power  to vote on Philadelphia II, Gravel’s effort to establish a National Initiative process.  Gravel sees this as, “Effecting peoples ability to act within a federal format.  It denies their sovereignty as federal citizens.”

Thanks to Supreme Court Justice Sandra O’Connor, Mike Gravel has been given until June 29th to prepare his appeal for certiorari.  If he is successful in persuading the Court that this is as an important an issue as  his last Pentagon Paper appeal, then he will probably have 45 days to prepare a brief for the Court.  During those days a number of Yale scholars will  help him prepare and argue the case in the fall….  Even the Yale scholars, however,  think his chances of getting certiorari or  “certified” are thin.

Back in 1971 Gravel’s chances of beating the Nixon Justice Department were thinner than erased tape.  Nonetheless,  thanks to Gravel, Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers many are a lot smarter on war, peace and the innards of government than we ever will be on  magically erased  words on about 13 minutes of thin tape.

Don Quixote knew that  unless you mounted   your  sturdy stead and charged the windmill with lance in hand, you would never know whether you might stick one  of the monster’s spinning blades.  Once stuck, a good knight can go for one helluva ride.

Gravel may be tilting with a supreme windmill, but if he hits  a blade he’ll  pull  the country along for an enlightening  political ride.

Update:  The US Supreme Court denied certiorari on Philadelphia II vs. Gregoire.

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Vietnam Vet and Senate Dove

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San Diego Review June 1, 1996

A Vietnam Vet and  Senate Dove

by Dwayne Hunn

If all goes according to plan, the Alternative Media  Conference(August 12-14th 1996) will find two guys talking about major Political Reform at People’s Lobby news hour.  One won a  Silver and three Bronze Stars in Vietnam.  The other filibustered  the Senate to end the draft and make additional Vietnams more difficult.

The first created the American Initiative Committee which has  run over 300 initiative campaigns.  The second was Alaska’s United  States Senator from 1969-81.  Both have now dedicated their careers to making the national initiative process an American way of life. Following are excerpts taken from People’s Lobby education video series with both men — Rick Arnold and Mike Gravel

Why did you become interested in the initiative process?

Rick:  Our company believes in the process, believes we need more direct democracy and sees this as one of the ways to have more access to and oversight of our government… Our representative form of government is going down a road that is  not in the best interests of the people.  We must work on some combination of representative government and direct democracy,  where people are going to give some direction to politicians as to how we live under the Constitution…

How  would you implement the National Initiative process

Rick:  I believe we need a constitutional amendment.  Some people  feel  this is a sovereign right that we never lost and that we only need a way to implement it..  My feeling is that even though that is the correct legal interpretation, since we have lived under the Constitution for over 200 years we should clarify the right by putting it inside the Constitution.  Others, like Mike Gravel and Barbara  Vincent, feel  that we could conducted a national election on this issue that would force the Congress to create the National Initiative process …

Why  should people support your Philly II proposal, establishing a national initiative process without going the Constitutional amendment route?

Mike:  Philly II will put in place the procedures, you don’t need to change the Constitution,  that will permit citizens to make national policy.   Philly II will establish the agency to permit this to happen in every governmental jurisdiction.  At the same time, it will outlaw the corrupting influences that we see in representative government — money, media biases, etc…

Let’s say  a number of people wanted to replace the federal income tax with a flat tax, how would the process work under Philly II?

Mike:  First, take a national poll like Roper or Gallop and ask the people if they would like to see the Federal Tax amended to a flat tax…  If  1/3rd of the people want to see this as law,  then the proposal  is qualified for election — merely qualified.  Now we have to have a public hearing.  If it is a national issue, we have hearings throughout the United States where ordinary citizens and experts testify.  At the hearing (s), you have a hearing officer from the national election trust, members of  Congress and sponsors of the flat tax. At the end of the hearing, changes, agreed to  by the sponsor, may be made.

After the hearing it would go to Congress.  Congress would have to vote on it, but their vote would work like Congressional committee system votes.  This  advisory vote would give people information based on how respected Congressmen voted.  After the advisory vote, it is now ready for election. The Electoral Trust then produces a phamphlet listing the proponents and opponents’ stance, and that is sent to every registered voter in the country.

After the phamphlet,  the Electoral Trust causes to be produced a radio and TV program which is played at prime time once in every jurisdiction… Then 50% + 1 voter decides the issue.