Tag Archives: national initiative movement

Extraordinary Ed Joyce

Who wheeled the initiative process out of the political junk heap and into the toolbox of contemporary democracy?

This inspirational, muscular, charismatic, jocular, peddler of provocative ideas…

An ex-car salesman, jazz musician and band leader, muckraking political crusader and his seemingly calmer wife Joyce…

Ed Koupal would publicly dissect the most comfortable and pompous of politicians, and crunch their careers.  He grew from choirboy to the nation’s foremost initiative crusader.   He taught Howard Jarvis techniques on how to make Prop 13 win.

Caliifornia's Political Reform Act 1974
People’s Lobby, Common Cause, Jerry Brown garnered 70%.

His organization directed the passage of California’s Political Reform Initiative, establishing political campaign reform and the Fair Political Practices Commission. He taught Ralph Nader and Jerry Brown how to use the initiative and play political hardball.  He built 40-50 people and kids into People’s Lobby which Nader referred to as the “best grassroots organization in the nation.”  People’s Lobby directed Western Bloc to stop the licensing of new nuclear power plants, while having the first and only Senate Hearings on implementing a National Initiative Process, Senate Joint Resolution 67 of 1977.

PLI organizes 3 days of hearings on SJ Res 67 in 1977 on National Initiative movement
PLI’s National Initiative Hearings of 1977

This condensed book, Ordinary People Doing the Extraordinary : The Story of Ed and Joyce Koupal and the Initiative Process, tells more about a great and unique husband and wife team.  The book was released for the 2002 campaign launch of the proposed National Initiative for Democracy.