Since I entered been in politics as a twelve year old stuffing envelopes there is always discussion about what effects turnout. This year one of the one the ideas is that the genius of the right (Rove) put gay marriage on the ballot to help George Bush's turnout. I don't care. I am not interested in the post-mortem attaching credit and blame where circumstance and correlation rule the land. I am interested in data and evidence - elections are gold mines for real hard data and history is a great teacher.
Enter Mark Schmidt, who has a great discussion of these ballot intiatives and an even better comment by Kristina Wilfore of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center (one of my favorite organizations, expect to hear more about them here on Mars). They both begin to lay waste to the idea of the ballot initiatives helping Bush this year with more data to come, but they do wonder about how we can use this strange and sometimes twisted arm of Democracy to favor progressive causes.
As a student of the spiritual home of the ballot initiative - California, I would like to throw out some thoughts and theories:
Ballot Initiatives identify people with an issue: The right-wing tax revolt began with Prop 13 and the Republicans used that to get all the way to the White House before they swept the south. Peter Schrag makes some great points in his book Paradise Lost about how the tax revolt managed to create a political shift in the nation because it was associated with the GOP. On the other hand Wilson's supported of Prop. 187 was closely associated with him and Initiatives can mobilize a constiuancy: I am not talking about non-voters, I have seen little evidence of this in my time in politics. However, Prop 187 and Prop 226 are perfect examples on how ballot initiatives can mobilize a constancy to help or hurt a candidate. With Prop 187 as I noted above the hispanic community in California turned away from the Republican party in droves, helping cement the winning coalition in 1998. Another example of a proposition mobilizing people is Labor's push to beat back Prop. 226 (a union busting initiative) also created a large turnout for their candidate Gray Davis allowing him to propel past two millionaires that vastly outspent him. Initiatives are often felt owned by people: The "revolt at the ballot box" concept is powerful in making people feel part of the process. The key is that when someone attacks an initiative that the people feel they created it becomes them against the will of the people. For more on this see George Lakoff's take on the "voter revolt" frame in the 2003 Recall election in his book: Don't think of an Elephant. Initiatives mean reform: Whether it is tax reform or clean elections ballot initiative are said exist to enact reform that the politicians won't or cannot. Thus using initiatives can both enact such reforms and make it supporting parties or candidates indetify closely with fixing the system. Governor Schwarzenegger has been playing this card ever since he went to Sacramento and it has kept his Terminator image intact.
Overall initiatives are part of the political process, but they are not sole reason why large numbers of people show up to the polls. However, they can be a source of new ideas and changing image of our party on a state by state level.
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