the initiative system Essay example

10-1-2013

The initiative system
Every society has interests that make people compete with each other and California’s political economy always had plenty of that. Majority of its population represents the blue side, however there is no lack of bilateral clash in the culture of its business and citizens. From day one lawmakers and presidents would compete for power and these arrangements would safely allow ambition to counteract ambition, as James Madison noted. Rejecting that logic, California progressive reformers at the beginning of 20th century removed those check by establishing the initiative. It’s political cultural is the people’s power to govern themselves through the tools of direct democracy(California politics pg 24), however the initiative system is not working how its creators thought it would work. It has caused several factors in today’s political economy such as, the conservative special interests lobbying for less tax and regulation on corporations to social reformers lobbying for government services, and conservationists fighting for the environment.

Ever since the initiative system was formed in California, it definitely has an impact on its governability and budgetability. The initiative system directly impacts state funds because many propositions got passed into law through it. Prop 13 is the most famous one to just do that.
It has fundamentally reshaped budgeting practices throughout the state by capping property taxes at 1 percent of a home’s or commercial building’s purchase price and by limiting property tax increase to no more than 2 percent per year. Although good for home owners, prop 13 sharply cut into the states revenue. It doesn’t only control increase in property tax, prop 13 also limits the government’s ability to raise revenue in other areas, because an increase requires supermajority vote requirement to raise taxes and fees. Now this makes budgeting hard because either party will need votes from one another to increase tax.

One more major impact of prop 13 on California’s economy is that it has left public schools more dependent on state funds. The loss of revenue it has created for school systems led to prop 98 which dictates almost 40% of the state yearly revenue. The amount of funds allocated to schools will then fluctuate with the economy, Which in a recession can bring cuts to the school systems. The state and local governments have struggled to find alternative sources of revenue to fund local schools ever since.

In addition to budgetability, there are few factors formed by the initiative system that challenges governability in the state of California. It has definitely challenged the legislatures ability to govern the state in accordance with the rules. Effected in 1911by Governor Hiram Johnson, the initiative system was designed to move the power to the people and away from special interest groups, however most citizens cannot overcome the financial and time barriers associated with the initiative process, well funded groups now dominate a system that was intended to reduce their influence(California politics pg25). Groups with enough money now buy signatures and are able to fund add campaigns with millions of dollars to run things their way.

Another factor which makes it hard to govern in California is term limits, passed into law by the initiative
System. It can delay progress of state legislation. Term

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