Direct Democracy (history in US)

The American tradition of direct democracy dates from the 1630s in the New England Colonies (Willard, 1858, and Miller, 1991, and Zimmerman, December 1999). Some New England town meetings still carry on that tradition (Zimmerman, March 1999).

Beginning in 1877, millions of American farmers began banding together to break the post Civil War, small-farmer enslaving, crop lein system with co-op economics (Goodwyn, 1976 and 1978). When they were bested by corrupt and abusive practices of the national financial sector, they attempted to improve their circumstances by forming the People's Party and mounting Populism. Again they were bested, this time by the country's mainstream two-party politics. However, the Reform Era had just begun. Before it was ended, it would be the greatest democracy movement in recorded history.

Fired by the valiant efforts of millions of farmers, by exposes written by investigative journalists (the famous muckrakers), and by correlations between special interests' abuses of farmers and special interests' abuses of urban workers, Progressives formed nationally connected citizen organizations to extend this greatest of democracy movements. From 1898 to 1918, the Progressives, supported by tens of millions of citizens, forced direct democracy petition components into the constitutions of twenty-six states (Cronin, 1989).

The constitutional placement of direct democracy petition components was seen by those citizen majorities as necessary. Given the obvious corruption in state governments, the lack of sovereign public control over the output of state legislatures was seen as "the fundamental defect" in the nation's legislative machinery. Advocates insisted that the only way to make the founding fathers' vision work was to take the "misrepresentation" out of representative government with the sovereign people's direct legislation (Special Committee of the National Economic League, 1912).

On June 6,1978 Proposition 13 (a ballot initiative) was enacted by the voters of the State of California. Its passage resulted in a cap on property tax rates in the state, reducing them by an average of 57%. Proposition 13 received an enormous amount of publicity, not only in California, but throughout the United States. Its passage presaged a "taxpayer revolt" throughout the country.

Proposition 13 was officially titled the "People's Initiative to Limit Property Taxation." It passed with 65% of voters in favor and 35% against, with 70% of registered voters participating. It was placed on the ballot through the California initiative (or referendum) process under which a proposed law or constitutional amendment, termed a "proposition," is placed on the ballot once its backers gather a sufficient number of signatures on a petition. When passed, Proposition 13 became article 13A of the California state constitution.

I&R citizen lawmaking spread across the United States because state legislatures were unresponsive in creating laws that the people needed to protect themselves from special interests, laissez faire economics, and the era's Robber Barons (Cronin, 1989, and Schmidt, 1989, and Zimmerman, December 1999, and Waters, 2001). Additionally, while legislatures were quick to pass laws benefiting special interests, both legislatures and the courts were inflexible in their refusals to amend, repeal, or adjudicate those laws in ways that would eliminate special interest advantages and end abuses of the majority (Cronin, 1989, and Zimmerman, December 1999, and Waters, 2001).

That same special-interests-favoring lawmaking, unresponsiveness to the people, and inflexibility to amend or repeal laws abusive of the majority -- continues to drive citizen lawmaking today (Schmidt, 1989, and Zimmerman, December 1999, and Waters, 2001).

Court battles over the constitutionality of direct democracy, from the early 1900s to the late 1990s, have repeatedly established that the combination of sovereign citizen lawmaking and representative government is, in fact, an historically traditional republican form of government (Magleby, 1984, and Natleson, 1999, and Zimmerman, December 1999).

In 1990, the civil society of Nevada -- an I&R state -- resolved to minimize the intense controversy raging around abortion. The Nevada legislature was under pressure from pro-life organizations to change the state's abortion law. The state's pro-choice organizations wanted the standing law, which conformed to Roe v. Wade, to be left as it was. The pro-choice organizations made use of a seldom-used feature in Nevada's I&R law. They petitioned for and passed a referendum on an existing state law. It was only the fifth time, since Nevada had gained citizen lawmaking in 1912, that the referendum on an existing state law had been used (Erickson, ). Because of the constitutional provisions defining this particular referendum, approval of the state law meant that the legislature is barred from ever amending the law. Only the people can amend such a law. It is called a "see us first" referendum provision. In 1990, it functioned as the safety-valve it was designed to be.

The participation of most Nevada citizens in the 1990 abortion law referendum, with an approving majority of over sixty percent, gives a degree of legitimacy to the standing law that no small number of legislators could ever invoke in such a visceral controversy. With the legislature legally taken out of the picture, and the referendum's large legitimacy recognized by both sides, the controversy quickly quieted. The legislature is free to refer proposed statutes or constitutional amendments relating to abortion to the people, but the people are now the decision-makers in this issue.

Citizens in Nebraska, after gaining the constitutional amendment initiative in 1912, used it to reduce their bicameral legislature of 133 members to a unicameral legislature of 43 members in 1934. Effective with the Nebraska legislature's first nonpartisan, unicameral session in 1937, it reduced cost, waste, secrecy, and time (no conference committee required), while at the same time making the legislature more efficient and more cooperative with the press and civil society. The success of combining direct democracy governance components with a unicameral legislature has stood the test of time (Nebraska Legislature Online, 2004, , retrieved 04 September 2004).

Direct democracy governance components have contributed significantly to state-level policy and law. Schmit (1989), Zimmermann (Dec 1999) and others contend that these contributions have been much more successful than most of direct democracy's critics admit.