Think Twice Before Signing That Ballot Initiative

It’s springtime, and that means it’s time for a fresh round of deceptive and destructive ballot initiatives. More often than not, these proposals are at odds with the principles of conservative governance, even if they don’t always sound that way.

The exact ballot initiative process varies from state to state, but the idea is simple: if you collect enough signatures, you can bypass the state legislature to get a proposed change to state law or even the state constitution on the ballot. If enough people vote for the change, it goes into effect whether the state legislators like it or not.

On the surface, ballot initiatives seem like a great idea. After all, what could be more democratic than circulating petitions, collecting signatures, and making laws without the help of representatives?

However, it is the purely democratic nature of ballot initiatives that in many cases make them so destructive. America’s Founding Fathers handed down a representative constitutional republic for a reason. They wanted to ensure that the “passions of the people” were moderated by elected governing bodies.

Consider Federalist No. 10, in which James Madison wrote, “democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

Consider also John Marshall in his work The Life of George Washington, who wrote, “between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.”

I could go on with quotes from Hamilton, Adams, and more, but the simple point is that simple rule by the majority on all matters is not what our Founders had in mind. They required each state to have a “representative form of government” because they believed that the people’s representatives are their best safeguards against chaos.

Some cynics argue that ballot initiatives are bad because people are too ignorant to rule themselves. But the more accurate analysis of the dangers of pure democracy is not that people are dumb, but rather that the left is so deceptive.

The average mom of three coming out of the grocery store doesn’t have time to thoroughly research a particular ballot initiative before making the choice whether to sign the petition or not. Big money interests capitalize on that.

Ballot initiatives don’t get started when a ragtag group of citizens spend their evenings after work collecting signatures in the park. Ballot initiatives start with the pollsters. Every word is carefully tested to gauge the best possible voter reaction. The more conservative the state, the more important it is for the language to sound conservative.

Once the pollsters have crafted the language that will get them the results they are looking for, they bring in the professional signature collectors.

This is the cheapest part of the whole ploy. In Missouri, getting a ballot initiative on the ballot will require at least 107,000 signatures this year, depending on the type of initiative. That may sound intimidating, but not when you have millions of dollars in your campaign war chest.

Let’s say a George Soros wanted to take down a solid red state’s restrictions on marijuana use via ballot initiative. He’d want to collect extra signatures since some would be declared invalid, so let’s round up the amount collected to 150,000. Assuming he hired really horrible signature gatherers who only got ten signatures per hour and paid them $40 per hour to do it, he will have bought a ballot initiative for $600,000. That’s chump change to a billionaire.

From there, it is a simple matter of drowning voters in advertising. We’ve all seen it happen. It is possible to beat the odds when it comes to campaign spending, but only to a point.

Conservatives are usually outgunned on funding, but that is to be expected. Sadly, there is more money in the abortion industry than there is in embracing life. There is more money in the marijuana industry than there is in safe streets.

You can see this slow-motion train wreck happening right now in Missouri, the very first state in the nation to completely ban abortion. A front group has been set up to push a ballot initiative that will legalize abortion all the way up until so-called “viability,” which is among the most liberal benchmarks possible.

However, to appeal to the ironclad conservative majorities of the state, the front group pushing the ballot initiative calls themselves “Missourians for Constitutional Freedom.”

The initiative itself is called the “Missouri Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment.” Note how the word “Reproductive” is carefully sandwiched between the more conservative-sounding “Right” and “Freedom.”

The language is expansive, allowing signature collectors to boldly proclaim their pro-abortion intentions in leftist enclaves, while their collectors in conservative territory will trick unsuspecting conservatives into signing by asking sneaky questions like “Would you sign a petition to give Missourians the right to make their own decisions about prenatal care?” or “Do you want to be able to make your own decisions about birth control?”

The reason leftists are so heavily relying on ballot initiatives is clear. Republicans dominate in state legislatures. Twenty-two states even have a “Republican trifecta,” which is where both statehouses are controlled by Republicans and the governor is also a Republican. In these states, ballot initiatives are often the only quick and effective way to spread the leftist agenda.

The natural next question might be, well why don’t conservatives utilize ballot initiatives in the same way in liberal states?

It’s a good point. Conservatives could, for instance, use the method to ban sanctuary cities, require courts to put violent criminal offenders in jail, or prohibit extreme late-term abortions.

Once again, however, conservatives would likely run into well-funded and well-organized efforts to oppose them. Currently, the left simply has more high-dollar donors than the right who are willing to back state-level initiatives.

Regardless, however, conservatives need to rethink how we treat ballot initiatives. Each and every one should be met with skepticism. All should be thoroughly researched before signing.

If they are to exist, they should be limited to simple, one- or two-sentence changes that can be easily understood. The less clear a ballot initiative is, the more likely it’s a recipe for disaster.

Ed Martin is a lawyer who succeed iconic conservative leader Phyllis Schlafly as President of the Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, the pro-family organization with leaders in every state. He clerked for the federal court of appeals and has served chief of staff to the governor of Missouri, chairman of the St. Louis board of elections, and in 1997 as special assistant to Pope John Paul II.