THW permit legislating by citizen initiated referenda

Citizen-initiated referendums

We cannot all go down to the local town centre as the ancient Athenians did. Our nations and our states are too big for that. Citizen-initiated referendum is one way for citizens to have a direct say in government decisions where there are large populations. Two of the things citizen-initiated referendum can do are:

• allow citizens to propose a new law

• allow citizens to vote against laws passed by parliament.

Some countries that have citizen-initiated referendum have one of the above and others have both.

Citizen-initiated referendum in three countries

Switzerland

The Swiss have had citizen-initiated referendum for over 100 years and in that time have voted on more than 300 issues. In 1977 the people rejected a proposal by the government for a new kind of tax. In 1984 they rejected another government proposal to reduce the working week from 42 hours to 38 hours.

United States

In the United States many states have some form of citizen-initiated referendum. In California during the 1990 elections, voters had to deal with a ballot paper with 20 referendum questions and 144 pages containing arguments for and against each referendum proposal.

In the 1960s the Californian government passed a law that real estate agents and owners of apartment houses could not use racial discrimination against people who wanted to rent or buy apartments or houses. The real estate agents initiated a referendum to overturn this law so that they could discriminate against people in this way. The real estate agents won.

Four states have voted to bring back the death penalty through referendum. Anti-gun laws have been introduced in several states.

Italy

In Italy the citizens can only initiate a referendum to vote against a law passed by the government. They cannot initiate a referendum to propose a law. In 1991 Italian people voted to remove a law which prohibited divorce.

How citizen-initiated referendum could work

Step 1

Some people in the community want a new law or to remove an existing law. They collect a number of petitions of registered voters and take them to the electoral office (say 1 per cent of voters in a majority of electorates in order to move to the next step).

Step 2

Parliamentary officers prepare a proposed law.

Step 3

The proposed law is debated in the parliament. If the parliament does not pass the proposal, it moves to Step 4.

Step 4

A referendum is held and if a majority of voters in a majority of electorates support the proposal, it becomes law.

This House Believes That we should have more direct democracy?

Arguments against more direct democracy	Arguments for more direct democracy
People already have a choice between members of parliament and the government programs they support.	People have more say about particular issues. Sometimes politicians of opposite sides agree among themselves on a policy they know the people don't support.
People already have to vote for federal, state and local governments. They don't want to have to go to polling booths more often. Electronic voting is not a realistic option; it has too many problems.	Electronic media allows debate and voting among large populations without any need for people to come to one place.
People have an opportunity, apart from elections through community and lobby groups to influence governments and governments are often guided by opinion polls.	Governments and parties can still play a role as they do today.
Citizen campaigns can more easily be led by people or groups with money - meaning wealthy groups have too much influence. Individual citizens or groups of citizens who propose change may not have the interest or the ability to make proposals in the best interests of all the different groups in the country or state.	Politicians are not the only people who are expert in making decisions for the nation as a whole. As people become more involved they become more expert.
Representative governments should look after the interests of minorities as well as the majority that voted for them. The people may be more influenced by prejudice or less concerned about minority rights.	Representative governments have not always looked after the interests of minority groups.
Once the people had voted on a citizen-initiated referendum it would have to become law. There would be no opportunity for the parliament to review the proposed legislation or make changes before it became law.	There is no reason to think that citizens will be any better or worse than governments.

referendum campaigning is much less well developed and well understood than the art of election campaigning. More effective in saying “NO” than saying “YES”
Amongst other things, modern political advertising tends to be:

* negative, often fiercely so;
* visual rather than textual;
* targeted to different segments of an electorate which is profiled and segmented in depth by party organisations;
* in particular, targeted at “swinging voters” who are considered by the parties to be the voters who are least well-informed, least civic minded, most materialistic and most easily stirred to negative emotions;
* increasingly short and simple;
* content-free as far as substantive issues and policies are concerned;
* geared to selling personalities rather than policies.

None of this is well suited to securing the passage of a referendum proposal, and task which requires (a) clearly explaining the proposal so that a large majority of the voting population understand it and (b) providing persuasive arguments to convince a majority of the voters to support it.