Grassroots missing from this year’s initiatives – What about last year?

Nearly one hundred years ago, progressives succeeded in amending the Constitution of Washington State to provide for three powers of direct democracy: The initiative, the referendum, and the recall.

The purpose of establishing these three powers was not to supplant or replace our republican form of government, but rather, to give the people a way to get the gears of representative democracy turning in case they got stuck.

Nearly one hundred years ago, progressives succeeded in amending the Constitution of Washington State to provide for three powers of direct democracy: The initiative, the referendum, and the recall.

The purpose of establishing these three powers was not to supplant or replace our republican form of government, but rather, to give the people a way to get the gears of representative democracy turning in case they got stuck.

A century later, the reverse is happening. Corporations and wealthy interests are hijacking the initiative process and using it to force votes on schemes that would pad their profits or advance their agenda at the expense of the rest of us. And apparently, the Seattle Times has only just noticed this.

I say this because the Blethens’ mouthpiece published a strange editorial this morning halfheartedly bemoaning the fact that the three initiatives likely to appear on this November’s ballot were guaranteed placement thanks to the use of paid signature gatherers by the sponsors:

Business, labor or cottage-industry initiative writers are behind all three proposals. Consider, for example, the labor effort to boost training and payments for home-health-care workers, backed by the Service Employees International Union. Think, too, about, the Costco-backed measure to get the state out of the liquor business or the anti-variable-tolling measure, advocated by Tim Eyman and heavily underwritten by Bellevue businessman Kemper Freeman.

As Washington approaches the 100th anniversary of its initiative process in 2012, it is fair to say this year is no exception. The process has been shifting from bottom-up governing to essentially initiatives as part of bigger lobbying efforts.

The process has been shifting“? We’d say the shift took place a long time ago. Where has the Seattle Times been?

We’ve been pointing out for years that Tim Eyman runs on big money, not small dollar donations. Nearly every single one of his initiatives has been underwritten by a single wealthy guy or a cabal of corporations, including last year’s Initiative 1053. The top donor to I-1053 was actually BP, one of the greediest and most irresponsible corporations on the planet. Other major donors included ConocoPhillips, Shell, Tesoro, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo.

I-1053′s lack of grassroots support didn’t bother The Seattle Times. The Blethens and their editorial writers enthusiastically endorsed Tim Eyman’s unconstitutional plan to sabotage majority rule without disclosing to its readers who had paid for it. Nor did the Blethens register any concern about who had bought and paid for I-1082 and I-1100, two other measures we targeted as part of our StopGreed campaign. (The BIAW was behind I-1082; Costco was behind I-1100).

We can only conclude, then, that corporate hijacking of the initiative process really doesn’t bother them. If it did, it would factor into their endorsement decisions, and they’d be using their editorial page to advocate for initiative process reform.

Tellingly, the editorial they published this morning calls for no reform at all. It just ends by stating the obvious: The initiative process has become a way for powerful interests to force votes on laws they want passed.

The editorial that they’ve published might best be described as the written version of a shrug. It lacks conviction and concern.

The author suggests that the demise of the citizen initiative is a bad thing, but his or her response on behalf of the paper basically amounts to indifference.

What a weak commentary on a serious dilemma.

Politics of Marginalised can help building stronger Human Rights Institutions (HRIs) in India

Majority of 1.21 billion plus population in India have been drawn immensely, through different mediums to politics, music/film, and cricket. Among the three, politics takes a centrestage and captures mind space affecting our day-to-day lives. Politics plays a significant role in the lives of the people, ultimately deciding cost of living, price of drugs, daily wages, sensex, and stock market.

Majority of 1.21 billion plus population in India have been drawn immensely, through different mediums to politics, music/film, and cricket. Among the three, politics takes a centrestage and captures mind space affecting our day-to-day lives. Politics plays a significant role in the lives of the people, ultimately deciding cost of living, price of drugs, daily wages, sensex, and stock market. Though being a signatory to Millennium Development Goals (MDG), crucial for addressing poverty and exclusion, India has yet to achieve it, which reflects the intention and direction of Indian politics. There is growing realisation among the majority of the population that state is using democratic institutions to legitimise its undemocratic decision- making process, reason being its failure to communicate with its citizens.

The onslaught of neo-liberal economic policies, which pampers corporates and pauperise the masses or policies that destroy jobs and livelihood and displace people at gunpoint, has generated two new trends in Indian politics. First, it has generated three types of parallel democratic confrontations. These are, (1) Mind game between the broken people and forces implementing neo liberal policies,(2) Religious fanatics are confronted by the liberal elements within their religion, and (3) section of upper caste joining dalits to dismantle upper caste hegemony. Second, in the wake of wide spread and increasingly documented cases of human rights violation, interest in reconciliation, as apolitical, juridical, and psychological construct is growing(Torture, Page. 72, Vol.21, No.2, 2011). While the former has immensely influenced the political trends in several parts of the country, the later has contributed in strengthening rule of law.

 

These trends in politics have not only affected the political parties, bureaucracy but also civil society groups and media. Intra organisational decision making process is under stress due to waves of democratisation of information demanding more transparency. All are in the line of fire due to lack of accountability and deficit of legitimacy for representing certain view. Pressure is building up on civil society groups to stand up to be counted for representing a democratic structure and implementing good practices like social audit in the organisations. The country is heading towards a politics that encourages participation to change and demonstrated will for initiating new age state craft.

Impact of ‘live’ telecast or broadcast has unnerved the dictators. In the one hand, it has greatly restricted the space and impact of manipulating politics through perception based information, on the other hand it provided more space for the growing agitation, people’s uprising, and dissent for protection of human rights. The arrival of information technology has strengthened the debate in favour of direct democracy. It has helped in questioning the representative character of politics and institutions. It exposed the design of the minority to keep the majority out of the process of participatory democracy in order to perpetuate their culture of impunity. Empowerment of majority is an evil dream for this section be they in politics, government or in civil society. The media has played an important role in breaking the silence of the majority marginalized population who have started questioning the right of this few self appointed leaders pretending to represent the majority and dare to negotiate for their future. These victims of the social system for centuries wish to ask their own question, and now demanding direct accountability from the state. Their politics has started establishing a culture where justice is not for the privileged few.

The effectiveness of human rights institutions depends on its communication with the victims, people and organizations who work for victims. The recent campaign by a section of the civil society groups to down grade the premier human rights institutions like NHRC has surprised many people in this country. One respects and accepts that this section in their wisdom concluded that NHRC has not delivered as per its mandate and up to their expectation. At the same time, some other sections which has benefited from the interventions of that institution believe that reform, not downgrading or shaming a national institution is good for victims of this country. These sections, representing the majority of the disenfranchised people certainly believe that NHRC, a quasi judicial body has taken suo-motto action on several occasions to provide relief to the victims who live in oblivion and for whom no one organizes press conferences. These majority sections cannot afford the expenses of cases that moves in an unlimited time frame in the court, thus prefer NHRC and other HRIs for relief. Agree, HRIs have its own limitations but they have their strength too. How many HRIs in the world, like NHRC, have opened their window to talk to their officers in the middle of the night to save the life of human rights defenders? This decision of NHRC should be welcomed and efforts should be made to push for more such decision through constructive criticism and public advocacy initiatives.

Limited effectiveness of NHRC and other HRIs, partly, remains in their mandate. What can NHRC do when the victims in its desperation to get relief, rightly so, appeals both to NHRC and the court. On several occasions, NGOs lose their cases in the lower court and then make appeal to the NHRC for relief showing the victim/s as human rights defenders. How can NHRC influence the already established investigating process, which the court also follows, for lakhs of cases it handles every year and at the same time not being accused of delaying in providing relief ? While some of the answers lie in an effective State Human Rights Commissions (SHRC), the fact remains that the institutions and its functioning are designed to keep the majority out of the net of beneficiaries. A pro people reform will harm the interest of the opportunists.

SHRC is undoubtedly a great idea to address human rights issues at the state level. But its functioning is harmed by two important problems, one, in majority of the states it is preoccupied with the unwritten responsibilities of shielding the present political dispensation, two, limited budget and lack of infrastructure affect its functioning. Looking from the point of financial viability, it is difficult to imagine SHRCs for small states. The state of District Human rights Courts are no different. Critics compare these courts with District Consumer Court where the lawyer, accused and the court connive to minimize penalty of the accused leaving the victims in lurch. A way out for some of these problems could be found in establishment of Regional Human Rights Commissions (RHCS) where appointments are done from an all India pool giving it a national profile. These RHCSs should be accountable to NHRC. Courts can also help in strengthening the HRIs by asking the victims whether any of the HRIs were approached for the same case and what is the status. While this will put immense pressure on the HRIs to remain on toes, the state will also realize its obligation in strengthening the HRIs.

Absence of victim centric politics in India has let down the HRIs, stalled legal and police reforms and increased threat of Human Rights Defenders across the country. The causes of marginalization of victims have never been in the political agenda of any party. No parliamentarian has showed concern to find out why for example, the report of The National Commission for Minorities were not tabled and discussed in the Parliament is a proof of policy makers concerns for the victims. How long can the poor and vulnerable sit on the fence between life and death and admonish their fate for living in the margins of the society. No amount of investment on their empowerment will recover the cost of sense of their vulnerability, suffering, and helplessness. It is time to PARTICIPATE to CHANGE.

Written by guest writer: Dr Mohanlal Panda, Advisor, People’s Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR)

Left, Right and Wrong on ‘Reform’ of Initiative Process

Journalist and Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation, Fellow at the Center for Social Cohesion at Arizona State University and co-author of California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It (UC Press, 2010).

The good news: reform of the initiative process is finally on the table in California. The bad news: the left and the right are getting reform wrong.

Journalist and Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation, Fellow at the Center for Social Cohesion at Arizona State University and co-author of California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It (UC Press, 2010).

The good news: reform of the initiative process is finally on the table in California. The bad news: the left and the right are getting reform wrong.

There’s a whiff of hypocrisy on both sides.

The left, which rails against the rich in most contexts, loves the rich when it comes to the initiative process. It’s pushing bills that add regulations and restrictions on signature gatherers that will make a process that’s the province of very rich people and institutions the even more exclusive province of super-rich people and institutions.

The right, which claims to be worried about budget deficits and runaway spending, thinks busting the budget is fine if it’s done by initiative. In particular, conservatives are attacking common-sense changes that would force initiatives to live within the budget, by requiring spending cuts when a measure mandates spending.

Let’s look at the left’s favored legislation, which appears to stem from the belief that what’s wrong with the process are petition circulators. One bill under consideration would force circulators to wear signs that indicate whether they are a paid signature gatherer or volunteers. This is unnecessary – it’s no secret that almost anyone you encounter with a petition is being paid, since every significant statewide campaign for the last 30 years has relied on paid circulators. And, to the extent such signs make collecting signatures harder, the signs may be good for circulators, who are able to demand a higher price for signatures when the work is more difficult. (That said, I’d be tempted to support the bill if it were amended to require its legislative supporters to wear signs that said, "I Believe Direct Democracy Is Only for The Rich").

Another piece of legislation backed by Democrats seeks to bar paying circulators per signature. This has been sold as an attempt to limit fraud in the process. But there are two problems. First, moving to hourly pay would make the process even more expensive, and thus further limit the ability of anyone but the very rich to play the initiative game. Second, it’s far from clear that a change in payment method would limit fraud. The incentive to conjure phony signatures would remain in place even if circulators were paid an hourly or daily wage. If circulators making such wages don’t produce a large amount of signatures efficiently, they are likely to lose their jobs. The incentive for fraud also would be present unpaid volunteers, since they too face pressure in California to produce many signatures in a short period of time.

The incentive for fraud is created not by payment – but by time. California requires hundreds of thousands of signatures – and gives initiative sponsors very limited time – only 150 days – to do so. It stands to reason that if you didn’t have to get so many signatures so quickly, you’d be less likely to cheat.

That’s why legislation that makes the process more difficult and more costly may tend to create more fraud. The good news is: there’s a smarter way. Reduce the number of signatures required – and give people much more time than the current 150 days to circulate for signatures. The new European initiative process provides a year to circulate. Switzerland provides 18 months. California should be in that ballpark.

Adding more time also would create more opportunities for deliberation in the initiative process -and more space for compromise with the legislature. That would be healthy because California’s initiative process needs to be integrated with its representative government – and in particular its budget process. For decades, initiatives have been a way to circumvent checks and balances – and impose new spending or limit taxes in ways that help bust the budget.

But the right has portrayed legislative proposals that seek to make initiatives to pay for themselves as attacks on the initiative process itself. This is nonsense. Yes, one may argue with the particulars of specific legislative proposals; the conservative commentator Steven Greenhut raises a good question about whether the department of finance, which reports to the governor, should be one of the entities able to decide whether an initiative is self-financing – a feature of a proposed constitutional amendment in this area that is now before the legislature. But the goal of forcing initiatives to live by the rules of budgets and legislation is a valid one. Even more important are legislative attempts to make initiatives subject to legislative amendment. California is the only place on earth where a statute passed by initiative may not be changed without another vote of the people.

The wrong-headedness of left and right on this subject helps illustrate the two principles that should guide improvements to the initiative process.

The first principle is access. True initiative reform would open the process up, give citizens more time to gather signatures, reduce high hurdles and costs in petition circulation, and permitting the use of the Internet for gathering. This opening up of the process is actually a check on the process. The more people who can participate in circulation, the more time there is to consider a measure, the less chance of abuse.

The second principle is accountability. The initiative process is an unaccountable fourth branch of government that permits those with resources to circumvent the legislative and other branches entirely. If there are to be restrictions in the process, those restrictions need to force initiatives to be treated like normal laws – in that they should fit the budget and be subject to fixes and amendments like any other statute.

Unfortunately, because of the views of the right and the left, initiative "reform" operates on the reverse principle: limiting access to the process, and frustrating any attempt to bring accountability to initiative law. The left and right seek to give us the worst of both worlds. We should do the opposite of what they advise.

Limit the ability of initiatives to run roughshod over our government. But don’t limit access to the process.

The challenges of direct democracy

Shyam Ponappa: The challenges of direct democracy
India must weigh the pros and cons of various approaches to direct democracy and develop one of its own
Shyam Ponappa: The challenges of direct democracy
India must weigh the pros and cons of various approaches to direct democracy and develop one of its own
Shyam Ponappa /  July 7, 2011, 0:59 IST
 

Direct democracy is alluring. The dangers to our society and economy from reckless governance as well as confrontational activists, however, are the undermining of institutions, and the unintended consequences.

Our governments have a carry-over of feudal and colonial attitudes and do not communicate unless they must. Change is accepted only under duress, and is not initiated through leadership. Mismanagement is tolerated, resulting in various scams such as the 2G spectrum scam and associated problems.

 

The current anti-corruption drive by Anna Hazare et al and their well-intentioned cohorts uses tactics that echo a righteous, anti-authoritarian and non-collaborative pattern of “us” versus “them”, combined with an insistence on their way alone. Yet, collaboration is essential for solutions that lead to an equilibrium, recognising the legitimacy of all stakeholders – the government and civil society – as well as the criticality of credible institutions and processes.

We in India are not alone in being drawn to direct democracy. Switzerland’s success in citizen participation combined with its federal structure is the epitome of a workable system. But this model cannot simply be transplanted without regard to cultural contexts. Consider the sobering example of California.

CALIFORNIA’S PREDICAMENT
California has been in a state of financial crisis for several years. In 30 years, the Golden State’s credit rating fell from among the best of the 50 states to the worst. Despite everything from Silicon Valley to agriculture, defence, aerospace, biotechnology and Hollywood, why can this state not manage itself? Why does The Economist quote labels like “dysfunctional”, “ungovernable”, even “failed” for this El Dorado (April 20)? To understand what happened in California, we must start with its direct democracy model imported from Switzerland.

THE SWISS MODEL
Since the 14th century, Switzerland has had a tradition of citizens participating in assemblies. Coordination among different sets of delegates, e.g. for building roads and bridges across different valleys, had to be approved by respective assemblies. On this canvas, Switzerland grafted America’s Constitution in 1848. It worked and still works because of its design, and Switzerland’s collaborative approach. Constitutional amendments require a referendum as well as a majority of votes by the cantons (states) in the legislature.

Thus, over half the cantons can overrule the popular majority in a referendum, because of the rule taken from America of two votes per state, even if they represent a minority of voters. After being approved in a referendum, the amendments go back to the legislature for redrafting. This enforces George Washington’s principle of “cool” debate outlined at the time of drafting the US Constitution, and embodied in Senate deliberations for dispassionate lawmaking. Initiatives for new laws by direct democracy go through the same process, but the legislature has the option to draft a counter-proposal. This process of engagement and negotiation is designed to avoid extreme outcomes and promote dispassionate solutions. As with America’s Constitution, this prevents two kinds of abuse: James Madison’s1 concerns regarding minority factions and their “swing vote” capturing outcomes (as in India, where minority factions become king makers), or a tyranny by the majority.

THE CALIFORNIA VARIANT
About 100 years ago, the Progressives in California brought in direct democracy from Switzerland. As in India today, the purpose then was to attack corruption, specifically, “The Octopus” of the Southern Pacific Railroad with its tentacles everywhere. California’s direct democracy was designed to achieve the opposite of the Swiss model. Switzerland emphasises compromise and consensus; California encourages confrontation, and the winners impose their will. Starting new initiatives (“propositions”) is easy; calling referendums on existing laws is difficult. In effect, California’s propositions are irreversible, because a retraction or reversal needs a two-thirds majority, which is virtually impossible because of minority factions and special interests.

For over half a century, there were no major problems. Then, in 1978, the anti-tax proponents initiated a property tax cap, Proposition 13. It limited state revenues (placing a ceiling on all property taxes at one per cent of the 1975 value, which could grow at no more than two per cent annually unless sold, thereby establishing a new value). There are contradictory views on the benefits of Proposition 13, with the defenders blaming opportunistic individuals, not the system, for problems. It is the old divide between tax-and-spend liberals versus cut taxes-and-services conservatives. The outcome, however, is that California went from being a liberal showcase with excellent infrastructure and services to a bankrupt state, cutting back on both.

WHAT INDIA CAN LEARN
India’s polity (at central, state, and local levels), at least now, must start creating systems that harness participation through all means available, so that the voice of popular assemblies is heard within the framework of our representative democracy, and acted upon.

The government needs to move away from the paradigm of “The Administration” against “The People”. Instead, the government must lead a process of collaborative stakeholder engagement for equitable resolution, like the one based on a lifeboat concept of shared interests and survival. As individuals, we need to move away from blaming routines (the government/everyone else is at fault, and I am a victim) to accepting the responsibility and discipline of institution building and processes.

WHAT INDIA REQUIRES

  • Discarding feudal/colonial notions of the durbar in political parties, among politicians and in government.
  • Channeling righteous public anger into the constitutional process with competence and discipline. Currently, there seems to be no effective way of demonstrating dissatisfaction except by taking to the streets.

We need institutionalised incentives and penalties to steer towards these effective means, and to abandon arbitrary and angry ways.

Technology allows this on an unprecedented scale, with perhaps 100 million Internet users in India already. To harness and channel this capacity, systems need to be developed on the lines of the Obama campaign2, vastly extended with the expertise and support staff to inform citizens and channel their participation constructively within an institutional framework. These systems will need to cover everything, from issue-based analysis and presentation to spelling out responsible choices with the foreseeable consequences, and collating individual inputs and preferences. If executed with vision, imagination and commitment, this could reduce the instances of people taking to the streets.