The Far Left’s War on Direct Democracy

The initiative is a reform born out of the Progressive Era, when there was general agreement that powerful interests had too much influence over legislators. It was adopted by most states in the Midwest and West, including Ohio and California. It was largely rejected by Eastern states, which were dominated by political machines, and in the South, where Jim Crow legislators feared giving more power to ordinary people.

But more power to ordinary people remains unpopular in some quarters, and nothing illustrates the war on the initiative more than the reaction to Ward Connerly’s measures to ban racial quotas and preferences. The former University of California regent has convinced three liberal states — California, Washington and Michigan — to approve race-neutral government policies in public hiring, contracting and university admissions. He also prodded Florida lawmakers into passing such a law. This year his American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI) aimed to make the ballot in five more states. But thanks to strong-arm tactics, the initiative has only made the ballot in Arizona, Colorado and Nebraska.

“The key to defeating the initiative is to keep it off the ballot in the first place,” says Donna Stern, Midwest director for the Detroit-based By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). “That’s the only way we’re going to win.” Her group’s name certainly describes the tactics that are being used to thwart Mr. Connerly.

Aggressive legal challenges have bordered on the absurd, going so far as to claim that a blank line on one petition was a “duplicate” of another blank line on another petition and thus evidence of fraud. In Missouri, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan completely rewrote the initiative’s ballot summary to portray it in a negative light. By the time courts ruled she had overstepped her authority, there wasn’t enough time to collect sufficient signatures.

Those who did circulate petitions faced bizarre obstacles. In Kansas City, a petitioner was arrested for collecting signatures outside of a public library. Officials finally allowed petitioners a table inside the library but forbade them to talk. In Nebraska, a group in favor of racial preferences ran a radio ad that warned that those who signed the “deceptive” petition “could be at risk for identity theft, robbery, and much worse.”

Mr. Connerly says that it’s ironic that those who claim to believe in “people power” want to keep people from voting on his proposal: “Their tactics challenge the legitimacy of our system.”

He’s not alone. Liberal columnist Anne Denogean of the Tucson Citizen opposes the Connerly initiative, but last month she wrote that BAMN “is showing a disgusting lack of respect for the democratic process and the right of all Arizonans to participate in it.” She detailed how members of this organization harass petitioners and film people who sign the petition, while telling them they are backing a racist measure.

The police had to be called when BAMN blocked the entrance of a Phoenix office where circulators had to deliver their petitions. “BAMN’s tactics,” she concluded, “resemble those used by anti-abortion activists to prevent women from entering abortion clinics.”

But BAMN proudly posts videos on its success in scaring away voters, or convincing circulators to hand over their petitions to its shock troops. “If you give me your signatures, we’ll leave you alone,” says a BAMN volunteer on one tape to someone who’s earning money by circulating several different petitions.

What about voters’ rights to sign ACRI’s petitions? BAMN organizer Monica Smith equates race-neutral laws with Jim-Crow segregation laws and slavery. She told Tuscon columnist Denogean that voters are simply being educated that ACRI is “trying to end affirmative action . . . We let them know it’s up on the KKK’s Web site.” Mr. Connerly has repudiated any support from racists.

Other opponents of Mr. Connerly deplore the blocking and name-calling. Arizona State Rep. Kyrsten Sinema told me that initiatives have been used to pass ideas such as campaign finance and redistricting reform often opposed by entrenched legislators. “People have a right to sign a petition, hear the arguments and then vote,” she says. Ms. Sinema thinks Arizonans can be persuaded to vote down ACRI’s measure, much as they voted down a ban on gay marriage in 2006.

The war against citizen initiatives has other fronts. This year in Michigan, taxpayer groups tried to recall House Speaker Andy Dillon after he pushed through a 12% increase in the state income tax. But petitioners collecting the necessary 8,724 signatures in his suburban Detroit district were set upon. In Redford, police union members held a rally backing Mr. Dillon and would alert blockers to the location of recall petitioners. Outsiders would then surround petitioners and potential signers, using threatening language.

Mr. Dillon denied organizing such activity. Then it was revealed two of the harassers were state employees working directly for him. Another “voter educator” hired by the state’s Democratic Party had been convicted of armed robbery. After 2,000 signatures were thrown out on technical grounds, the recall effort fell 700 signatures short.

Note:  The Liberty Tree Lantern, is very concerned about a Combination Civil / Re-Revolutionary War.  This article and especially the above two paragraphs shows how a government stooped in Socialism, such as Michigan, will fight directly with us to force more and more taxes on us.  Look, folks, you MUST understand, Mr. Dillon, used “police” union members, That means actual Policemen folks, to prevent our fellow countrymen from using FREEDOM (from Government) to prevent a 12% tax increase. 

You must, you need to understand the severity of the nature of the eternal evil nature of all governments throughout history. All governments, especially Socialist leaning governments, always suck the prosperity from the people they govern for what they claim; “Is in your best interest.”.

This case in point, hopefully, will give you a perspicacious understanding as to why we must become as strong and as hardnosed as our State and especially Federal Governments to make them obey the law of our Federal and State Constitutions.  Only in this way can we protect ourselves and our property and perhaps, with a lot of luck, avoid the impending war.

Ever since voters in virtually every state with direct democracy passed term limits in the 1990s, state legislators have been hostile to the process. Now Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska and Colorado have all passed legislation to prohibit people from out-of-state from circulating a petition, and also to ban payment to circulators on a per-signature basis.

To his credit, Colorado’s Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter vetoed such curbs. In March, a Sixth Circuit federal appeals court panel unanimously ruled that an Ohio law barring per-signature payment violated the First Amendment. Similarly, a Ninth Circuit panel just voted unanimously to strike down Arizona’s residency law for circulators.

Some judges think the “blocking” of signature gatherers has gone too far. In 2006, Nevada Judge Sally Loehrers decreed a “civility zone” that barred opposing sides from coming within arms’ length of each other at petition signing sites. “The blockers were off the streets within two days,” says Paul Jacob, the head of Citizens in Charge, which promotes the initiative process.

Last year, Mr. Jacob was charged with conspiracy to defraud the state of Oklahoma in a bizarre prosecution that claimed he brought in out-of-state signature gatherers in violation of the state’s residency requirement. Yet local public sector unions opposed to Mr. Jacob hired out-of-state outfits such as the Voter Education Project, an AFL-CIO offshoot that specializes in harassing signature drives.

Representative government will remain the enduring feature of American democracy, but the initiative process is a valuable safety valve. So long as elected officials gerrymander their districts and otherwise make it nearly impossible for voters to oust them, direct lawmaking will be popular. That’s why attempts to arbitrarily curb the initiative, or to intimidate people from exercising their right to participate, must be resisted. It’s a civil liberties issue that should unite people of good will on both the right and left.

Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com¹.

This Capt. Karl attended a “grassroots” citizen taxpayer rally in Madison Wisconsin, at our State Capital last year.  There were hundreds of Wisconsin citizens there demanding “No New Taxes”.  Do you know who the State of Wisconsin Government threw in our faces only separating us and them by plastic barrier tape?  Policemen, firemen, prison guards from State government all of whom not only were very threatening to us and vulgarly and offensively cussing up a storm in complete and utter anger, but were also being paid by our State taxes to do so.  We took off of work and sacrificed income to be at the taxpayer rally and the State workers by the hundreds, were paid to be there.  Can you imagine?

One of the State Prison Guards had to be at least 6’4” tall and about 270 lbs.   At the end of the rally, just as the police took down the plastic barrier tape, he rushed up to Vicki McKenna of WISN talk radio and literally stood three inches from her face and screamed at her for being a guest speaker at the rally.  I am proud to say that little Vicki stood her ground and fired back like a real trooper.  The police were unbelievably slow to get to the conflict which was up on the patio used as a stage.  Scary huh?  That is why the Founding Fathers wrote our Constitution the way they did and why it is up to us INDIVIDUALLY to enforce the laws of The Constitution and invoke the “commonsense” of The Declaration of Independence.

Next time there is a taxpayer or other rally to protect our rights, our property and our freedom, how about if you join with us and show them that Americans are not afraid to fight Government tyranny?!  After all, in the real world, in fact and in deed, it is truly us against them (Government, Government Officials and Government workers).  Our Founding Fathers, according to multitudes of recorded writings, knew this is how it was going to be, that it would be up to us individually but united to fight to protect our property and our rights and they were certainly right.