THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE

Thursday, September 26, 2002 - I've often had mixed feelings about ballot
initiatives. Sometimes amending the state constitution feels like a drastic
approach to dealing with issues that might be better handled by the
legislature.

But as I've watched proposals come and go during the past few years, I've
learned to appreciate the vital role the initiative process plays in
dealing with issues the legislature cannot or will not address.

It's tough for legislators to adequately handle topics such as term limits,
budget restrictions, campaign contribution rules or anything else that will
have a direct effect on their careers, their discretion or their
re-election efforts.

That's no criticism of the integrity of politicians; I'm just acknowledging
the reality that any of us would face in a similar situation.

Suppose your boss came to you and said, "I want you to come up with a plan
that will allow the company to scale back your responsibilities, reduce
your pay and require your layoff in eight years regardless of how well
you're performing."

The kicker, of course, is that you're the only person who has the power to
create or implement this plan. If you ignore the request, then your
responsibilities will not be cut back, your pay will not decrease and you
will not get laid off. How many of us would have the courage to develop a plan?

That's exactly what the citizens of Colorado (the boss) ask of our
legislators (employees) - to cut back their own authority, incomes and job
security - and they naturally resist. That's human nature.

Sometimes the boss must act rather than leave it up to the employees. In
the case of our legislative process it means the citizens must collect
signatures and submit an initiative that will compel our legislators to
follow the rules that we want them to follow.

For example, the TABOR Amendment was passed in 1992 because the citizens
had grown weary of budget increases. It was the sort of decision the
legislature would never have made because it cut too far into its budgetary
discretion. This year, voters will consider initiatives for campaign
finance and election reform that likely would never had made it out of the
legislature.

Initiatives also pick up the slack on politically sensitive issues that are
too dangerous for politicians to handle. The medical marijuana amendment
that passed in 2000 is one example. The citizens of Colorado approved this
measure because they believed that doctors should be permitted to prescribe
marijuana as pain relief for people suffering from debilitating illnesses.

But politicians who might have supported medical marijuana didn't speak up
because they feared that sound bites might haunt them. No one wanted to
stand in front of a crowd and proclaim that he was in favor of smoking pot.
Sure, his audience would understand the context of his words, but in the
next election season, his opponents would use out- of-context snippets of
the speech in negative attack ads.

The initiative process allowed the citizens to step forward when
legislators were afraid to act.

The third strength of initiatives is that they allow the minority political
party to speak directly to the people on issues on which they believe there
is strong public support.

"In a Democratic state like New Jersey, the Republicans are friends of the
initiative process," said Dennis Polhill, senior fellow at the Independence
Institute. "But in a Republican state like Colorado, the Democrats tend to
be friends of the initiative process. Whichever party is in the minority
likes initiatives, because it allows them to take things straight to the
people."