Some Considerations Upon the State-Wide Initiative and Referendum

Professor Beard has well said that a system of initiative and referendum can be intelligently discussed only with reference to the concrete forms in which it appears. Upon this question as elsewhere much of the discussion is fruitless because it does not take into account the varying aspects of the institutions under consideration. The purpose of this paper is very largely to consider the main objections to the initiative and referendum, and the extent to which these new instruments of democracy may be wisely employed under our system of government. In the operation of the initiative and referendum there are three fundamental steps: (1) The drafting of the measure to be submitted; (2) the obtaining of initiative or referendum petitions, and (3) the submission of measures to a vote of the people. It will be well to discuss each of these steps separately. The question of draftsmanship has been one of the most serious ones in connection with the initiative. Perhaps too much emphasis has been placed upon the value of discussion in legislative bodies, for we realize that the great bulk of our state legislation does not receive careful consideration by the bodies which enact it. It is true also that important measures are frequently drafted by individuals or organizations which have no official connection with legislative bodies. But legislative discussion is of much value, and one of the most hopeful movements in recent years has been that toward scientific draftsmanship of legislation. Any plan which will enable a small group of persons to force action by the voters upon legislative proposals, no matter how crudely drafted, is defective just to that extent. To this point it is not sufficient to answer that much legislation now enacted by legislative bodies is bad, and that the more important initiative measures in Oregon and elsewhere have been drafted with some degree of care. There must, in addition, be some guarantee that initiative measures shall receive serious consideration, (203)

Democracy · Government (linguistics · Law and economics · Legislation · Legislature · Political science · Politics · Referendum · Sociology · State (computer science · Value (mathematics · Computer Science · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Law, Rights, and Freedoms · Legal and Constitutional Studies · Public Administration