The Blessings and Curses of Piecemeal Reform

Although many expected 2010 to be the year of comprehensive constitutional change in California, plans for calling a constitutional convention in the state collapsed. Instead, interest groups and legislators—whose goals were disjointed and often diametrically opposed—worked to pass five separate “piecemeal reforms” amending the constitution. This Essay examines the process of piecemeal reform, drawing on California history, jurisprudence in the state, and the experiences of other states to lay out the benefits as well as the costs of this approach to constitutional change. It concludes by suggesting an alternative approach to reform that seeks to capture the blessings while avoiding the curses of the piecemeal process

Social Choice, Crypto-Initiaives, and Policymaking by Direct Democracy

The initiative process was created originally to enable citizens to enact public policy directly and in so doing to overturn the dominion of interest groups and of state and local party machines. In recent years, initiatives have been thought to serve as a check on legislative authority and to provide the people with a means to pressure the legislature into adopting more public regarding policies. Indeed, the general consensus emerging from the most recent academic research is that, at their worst, initiatives are benign, while at their best, they serve to further the interests of electoral majorities. A few scholars, however, have found reason to pause in their celebration of the initiative, finding shortcomings in its process, its outcomes, or both. In this paper we argue that initiatives will only infrequently improve the public’s welfare. We begin with a survey of the basic social choice and public choice critiques of the initiative process. We argue that, despite recent rigorous scholarly attention as to the effects of initiatives, we find little reason yet to reject the social and public choice criticisms of policy making via direct democracy. We then offer a series of anecdotes about the rise of crypto-initiatives, which are initiatives that use direct democracy as an instrument to achieve non-policy related goals. Finally, we conclude that the problems inherent in the initiative process are being magnified by the increase in crypto-initiatives and the rise of the crypto-political machines, the new 527 PACs, that sponsor them. Increasingly, the public welfare may be only an incidental consideration in the sponsorship, passage and implementation of initiatives. This in turns implies that we consider anew limiting or amending the initiative process

For Whom the TEL Tolls: Can State Tax and Expenditure Limits Effectively Reduce Spending?

Can voters stop state governments from spending at high rates through the enactment of tax and expenditure limits (TELs), or do these laws become dead letters? We draw upon the principal-agent literature to theorize that TELs – one of the most frequent uses of the initiative process across the country – may be circumvented by the sorts of elected officials who would inspire their passage. In order to investigate our claim, we conduct an event study. First, we test for the effectiveness of TELs across states using a differences-in-differences model. Second, we dissect our treatment variable using different legal provisions of the limits to test whether there is a uniform effect across different types of TELs. Finally, we compare state fiscal patterns before and after adoption on a state-by-state basis. Using this simple approach and other methods, we show that TELs are largely ineffective, and that state officials can circumvent them by raising money through fees or borrowing. Our finding is consistent with recent studies showing that policies passed through direct democracy can often be thwarted by the politicians charged with implementing them

For Whom the TEL Tolls: Can State Tax and Expenditure Limits Effectively Reduce Spending?

Can voters stop state governments from spending at high rates through the enactment of tax and expenditure limits (TELs), or do these laws become dead letters? We draw upon the principal-agent literature to theorize that TELs – one of the most frequent uses of the initiative process across the country – may be circumvented by the sorts of elected officials who would inspire their passage. In order to investigate our claim, we conduct an event study. First, we test for the effectiveness of TELs across states using a differences-in-differences model. Second, we dissect our treatment variable using different legal provisions of the limits to test whether there is a uniform effect across different types of TELs. Finally, we compare state fiscal patterns before and after adoption on a state-by-state basis. Using this simple approach and other methods, we show that TELs are largely ineffective, and that state officials can circumvent them by raising money through fees or borrowing. Our finding is consistent with recent studies showing that policies passed through direct democracy can often be thwarted by the politicians charged with implementing them

Social Choice, Crypto-Initiatives and Policy Making by Direct Democracy

The initiative process was created originally to enable citizens to enact public policy directly and in so doing to overturn the dominion of interest groups and of state and local party machines. In recent years, initiatives have been thought to serve as a check on legislative authority and to provide the people with a means to pressure the legislature into adopting more public regarding policies. Indeed, the general consensus emerging from the most recent academic research is that, at their worst, initiatives are benign, while at their best, they serve to further the interests of electoral majorities. A few scholars, however, have found reason to pause in their celebration of the initiative, finding shortcomings in its process, its outcomes, or both. In this paper we argue that initiatives will only infrequently improve the public’s welfare. We begin with a survey of the basic social choice and public choice critiques of the initiative process. We argue that, despite recent rigorous scholarly attention as to the effects of initiatives, we find little reason yet to reject the social and public choice criticisms of policy making via direct democracy. We then offer a series of anecdotes about the rise of crypto-initiatives, which are initiatives that use direct democracy as an instrument to achieve non-policy related goals. Finally, we conclude that the problems inherent in the initiative process are being magnified by the increase in crypto-initiatives and the rise of the crypto-political machines, the new 527 PACs, that sponsor them. Increasingly, the public welfare may be only an incidental consideration in the sponsorship, passage and implementation of initiatives. This in turns implies that we consider anew limiting or amending the initiative process