IN HOME OF BALLOT INITIATIVE, COURT RULING IS SEEN AS BOON OR BANE

Denver -- In the West, the populist cradle of the ballot initiative
movement, a new Supreme Court ruling rejecting curbs on petition
circulators was hailed Wednesday by issue advocates as a move toward
greater democracy and denounced by state legislators as commercializing a
grass-roots process. "We are going to have businesses coming here from out
of state and setting up major operations," said Ray Powers, the Republican
president of the State Senate in Colorado, where eight initiatives were on
the ballot in November. "Now if you have $400,000, you can get your issue
on the ballot with paid circulators and into law with 30-second sound
bites. That's not a true citizens' initiative."

In a ruling that affects most of the nation's 24 states with ballot
initiative laws, the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional on Tuesday a
Colorado law that required people who circulate petitions to be registered
to vote. Fourteen other states, largely in the West and the Midwest, have
similar rules.

The Court also rejected a Colorado law requiring that petition circulators
wear identification badges specifying whether they are paid or volunteer
workers. Idaho has a similar law. Finally, the Court rejected a law here
that required initiative backers to file monthly reports identifying paid
circulators and how much they are paid. It is unclear how many other states
have such laws.

Although ballot initiatives first began in this country in 1898, in South
Dakota, this political tool only became popular in recent years. In the
1990's, there have been 312 initiatives, compared with 88 in the 1960's.
Controversial questions have been forced onto ballots, often with help from
out-of-state businesses that recruit and pay petition circulators. "The
upside is that you are going to see more people undertaking initiatives for
the 2000 election," said Dane Waters, president of the Initiative and
Referendum Institute, a nonprofit study group based in Washington. "The
downside is that state legislatures are going to look to new restrictions
on the process."

State legislators, Waters said, are already debating restrictions such as
residency requirements for signature collectors or requirements that voters
approve ballot initiatives by two-thirds instead of a simple majority. Last
year, for example, Utah voters approved a referendum prepared by the
Legislature that mandated a two-thirds majority to pass all initiatives
dealing with the taking of wildlife.

"Hunters are strong in state legislatures and now they are raising the bar
to an impossibly high standard," said Wayne Pacelle, senior vice president
of the Humane Society of the United States. "We have had about a dozen
successes since 1990, and now they want to block us from future successes
through the initiative process."

Many state legislators and officials make little secret of their distaste
for ballot initiatives.

"There is a fear that this is direct democracy run amok," said William T.
Pound, director of the National Conference of State Legislatures. Last
year, Oregon led the nation with 10 ballot initiatives. "For $100,000 you
can put just about anything on the ballot in Oregon," said Neil Bryant, a
Republican who heads the State Senate Judiciary Committee. "They just go to
the three busiest shopping malls and gather all the signatures they need."

In California, which had seven ballot initiatives last year, Bill Jones,
the Republican Secretary of State, said Wednesday: "By being able to pay
people to gather signatures, the initiative process has turned into a
cottage industry in California. It has changed from a grass-roots concept
to a major business where these companies that collect signatures go from
election to election." But issue advocates say that professional signature
gatherers are needed because of hurdles placed by state legislatures.

"In California, you need over 400,000 signatures in 150 days," said Bill
Zimmerman, executive director of Americans for Medical Rights, a nonprofit
organization based in Santa Monica that advocates the legalization of
marijuana for medical purposes.

"It is impossible to do it without them." Calculating that $3 billion was
spent on candidate races nationwide last year, Zimmerman said of the
California Secretary of State, "It is silly to point at the initiative
process as commercialized when you are part of a candidate process that is
far more commercialized."

If the Supreme Court ruling had been in effect one year ago, Zimmerman
said, medical marijuana initiatives would have been on the ballot last
November in Colorado and Maine.

Rick Arnold, president of National Voter Outreach, one of half a dozen
companies that use professionals to gather signatures, said his business
would not exist if state legislators did not create so many barriers to
ballot initiatives.

"If a state is interested in making the system more populist, they need to
make it less restrictive," Arnold said from his office in Carson City, Nev.
"Anytime states make the process more difficult, they make it more certain
that they have to hire companies like mine to get on the ballot."