In the Hands of the Elite

As many of the Initiative Madness bloggers have established in the past few entries, California's initiative system is not all that user-friendly. It's complex, convoluted, and, most importantly and disillusioningly, it's costly.

In conclusion, California's initiative system, intended as a means for the common person to reach out and shape state politics without the influence of the professionals and politicians that make up the elite of our state, is a myth. From our experience endeavoring to initiate an initiative ourselves, I've learned that California's initiative process is not in the hands of the people. And if we don't have control over even that democratic function, then that makes California an elite-run state - we're just here to vote for the elite with their elite ideas.

Which brings me to another conclusion: why maintain this initiative system anyways? Not only is it not a true people-driven process, it's also kind of a screwed up one. Sure, it's the elite running the whole thing, but it's not the political elite who at least understand what goes around California. These are the rich white guys who happen to have a few bucks lying around to donate to their favorite cause. Rich does not necessarily equal politically savvy. In fact, as California history has shown, the initiatives that do get passed aren't guaranteed to have the most stable, sound implications for California. For example, Prop 13 eliminated the property tax, which was fine and dandy, until California realized that its schools would get severely short-changed in the process. Those sorts of negative consequences aren't always forseen with the initiative process, and so those sorts of consequences aren't always anticipated when these initiatives get drafted to begin with.

So what we have is incomplete legislation getting passed into law with both good and bad implications for California. It's not legislation we have a say in creating; even if we like the general idea, we can't do much about specific sections we don't like aside from voting down the initiative altogether or trying to start up another one to counteract the aforementioned initiative.

With all of the negative aspects of this process, why do Californians insist on maintaining the initiative process? I think the answer still lies with what Bruce Cain said back in October. Cain may have been slightly erroneous in his statement that California's initiative process is a "user-friendly" one but he was right when he also asserted that the initiative process is still here because people trust their own judgment. However twisted and inaccurate it may be that we see equate our judgment with the rich, the fact remains that we do - and we're still voting this November 8.