california legislature
The November election delivered California Democrats a coveted super-majority for governing the state.
Now the party’s leader in the Senate wants to use that political capital to give the Legislature more say in the voter initiatives that make their way to the ballot.
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After last November’s election, Democrats in California enjoy a super-majority in both chambers of the state legislature. In a bid to use that new-found clout, Senate Majority Leader Darrell Steinberg seeks to get the legislature more involved in initiatives.
While state legislators and special interests continue to call for restrictions on what they call a flawed citizen initiative system, yet another report has come out indicating that California’s budget woes are the fault of the legislature, not the voters and the initiative process. The nonpartisan Center for Governmental Studies has found in a preliminary report that legislators outspend the public at the ballot box nearly four-to-one!
While we don’t support or oppose any particular initiatives here at Citizens in Charge Foundation, we work with a lot of initiative activists who do. At the Grassroots Director, I am in regular contact with people involved in initiatives all over the country, and it gives me great insight into how the process really works “on the ground”. It is that insight that makes me question the logic of a bill that has recently passed the California legislature, and whether California legislators even understand the initiative process that they are meddling with.