FIXING THE INITIATIVE

Commission Takes A Needed Look At Ballot Reform.

Frustrated by ballot initiatives? Like the basic thrust of some measure,
but wish it had been better crafted to remove a fatal flaw? Dismayed that
big policy questions may be settled by the weight of special interest dollars?

Hold those thoughts. They deserve to be grist for the mill of Assembly
Speaker Robert Hertzberg's Commission on the California Initiative
(www.cainitiative.org), which held its first meeting last week and hopes to
come up with recommendations for the Legislature on how to improve citizen
lawmaking.

Californians remain as wedded as ever to the idea of the initiative,
trusting the voters' own instincts over the Legislature's on policy issues.
But they also recognize that the system doesn't work as well as they would
like. A device meant to let citizens overcome the legislative power of
special interest money has become big money's playground. Whether it's
alcohol, oil and tobacco companies funding Proposition 37 to dump the costs
of pollution onto taxpayers, or Silicon Valley millionaire Tim Draper
trying sell school vouchers in Proposition 38, rich individuals and big
companies dominate Tuesday's initiative ballot.

No wonder a recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found
only one in 10 voters very satisfied with the initiative as it is and
three-quarters favoring changes.

Problems with the initiative go beyond money. Voters too often are
confronted with measures that may send an electoral message but end up as
confetti in court because they are unconstitutional. And many
well-intentioned measures -- like Proposition 36's drive to shift the
emphasis in drug enforcement from incarceration to treatment -- founder
because drafters overlook big problems and don't take full advantage of the
expertise of those in the field.

Over the next months, the bipartisan citizens commission will consider ways
to correct those problems, including ballot disclosure of the chief
financial backers, pre-election legal review and a way to allow legislative
review and fine-tuning of proposals before they go before voters. It hopes
to have some ideas for the Legislature by next March. Voters struggling
with the flaws in this year's process should be ready to give the
commissioners an earful of good advice.