A lack of initiative: fewer citizen initiatives could make life easier at the Capitol, but at what cost?

• Author: Bowser, Jennie Drage
• Position: ELECTIONS

By now we've alt read about voters' contradictory behavior in the 2014 elections. Although they overwhelmingly favored conservative candidates at the state and federal levels, they leaned left on several citizen-initiated ballot measures.

Voters increased the number of states with GOP majorities in both legislative chambers to 30, the highest number since 1920, while also raising the minimum wage, legalizing recreational marijuana, strengthening gun control laws and rejecting abortion restrictions.

What's even more remarkable about the recent two-year election cycle was the scarcity of initiatives--only 38 made it onto statewide ballots. That's quite a drop from 70.2, the average number of ballot measures during the "boom years" between 1987 and 2012. It's even remarkably lower than 43.7, the all-time average going back to 1904, when voters in Oregon faced the nation's first initiatives.

The number of initiatives in the 24 states that allow them hasn't dropped uniformly, but in the three states that have traditionally used the process the most, the number has dropped significantly.

Consider California: In 2006, there were 17 initiatives on the ballot; in 2014, just three. Oregon's experience is similar. There were 10 initiatives in 2006, but just four in 2014. And in Colorado, initiatives peaked in 2008 at 10, dropping to half that last year.

This decline may be welcomed by some lawmakers and staff involved in the budget process. Initiatives can require quite a scramble to implement and a squeeze to fit into the budget. But a decline in initiatives may also result in even fewer citizens turning out to vote. And that concerns many Americans.

What's Really Happening?

So why are citizen initiatives, in general, declining? Are lingering traces of the recent recession still making it tough for initiative sponsors to raise the funds necessary to collect signatures and run a campaign? Are regulations making it more difficult to qualify initiatives?

In 2008, when the number of initiatives dropped to 59, from 76 in 2000, it seemed reasonable to hypothesize that the recession was at fault.

The slide in numbers began with the 2007-2008 cycle, which correlates with the financial crisis beginning at the end of 2007. With the economy in the dumps, one could assume interest groups were having trouble raising the money necessary to qualify initiatives for the ballot. It didn't even seem far-fetched to blame the slow economic recovery in 2010 for only 42 initiatives on general election ballots.

But when that low number repeated itself in November 2012, observers began to wonder if something else was at play. And after the drop last year they are no longer just wondering. They are now asking: Why hasn't the current revitalization of the economy had an impact on the initiative process?

Data released in November 2014 by the Center for Public Integrity cast further doubt on the idea that the cost of qualifying an initiative and running a campaign had squeezed out all but the wealthiest sponsors.

Campaign spending on statewide ballot measures, according to the center, swelled in 2014--to $196 million. That's more than double the $87 million spent in 2010. Given that increase, a shortage of cash doesn't appear to be the cause for the continuing decline in initiatives.

Maybe a recession, by itself, isn't enough to send the initiative into a bust cycle. In 2007, the country was not only heading into a bad recession, it was also approaching its sixth year of war. Perhaps the boom years simply proved to be unsustainable throughout a major recession...