Critics argue that the initiative, referendum, and recall process undermines minority rights. From the inception of this country there was a concern for minority rights versus the will of the majority. In recent years the initiative and referendum process has become so popular in states like California that this concern for minority rights has become highlighted by critics of the process who point out the most prejudicial uses of the initiative, referendum, and recall process in the past such as the constitutional amendment in 1920 the essentially barred Japanese aliens from owning land. Propsition187 that was passed in 1994 and reduced social services to illegal immigrants, and Proposition 209 that eliminated affirmative action programs in public education, government hiring, and contracting. So, lets look at the record.
California is particularly interesting as a study in minority rights versus the will of the majority. California has become a majority-minority state, meaning that no single ethnic or racial group constitutes a simple majority in the state. However, even though non-Hispanic whites are no longer a majority in the state, they still make up two-thirds of the of the voting population, and in a winner-take-all voting process, they can potentially outvote and pass legislation that ethnic and racial minorities in California collectively opposed. This being the case, the question of whether or not minorities are winners or losers in the initiative, referendum, and recall process becomes critical, not only for Blacks, Asians, and Latinos in California, but for whites as well since they may soon become a minority and are now a minority in some cities, counties, and districts of the country. As the movement for true democracy in this country picks up speed, the issue of minority versus majority rights has become an important issue to us all.
In 2001, Zoltan Haynal and Hugh Louch published a study for the Public Policy Institute of California entitled, Are There Winners and Losers? Race, Ethnicity and California's Initiative Process. This study was based on the analysis of all initiatives between 1978 and 2002 in California. The study concluded that even though minorities did not fare well on minority focused propositions like Proposition 187 and Proposition 209 referred to previously, these types of propositions only represent about 5% of all the propositions considered during the period studied.
When we consider the full scope of the propositions considered between 1978 and 2000, and, at the same time, consider propositions that minorities say are important to them, or, as a group, they have a clear preference for or against, the results of the study concludes that Blacks, Latinos, and Asians have roughly the same probability of being on the winning side of an initiative as do white voters.
I think it is obvious why African Americans, Asians, Latinos, and most working class Californians support the initiative, referendum, and recall process. Like the vast majority of Americans, they know the Sacramento and Washington are dominated by big money, global corporations and financial institutions, and special interest groups, and it is far better to be batting .500 in the initiative process than never getting up to the plate in Washington and Sacramento.
Finally, what is most remarkable about the process is that in the study by Hajnal and Louch, Are There Winners and Losers? they also observed that - as with party affiliation, race, and ethnicity - regardless of age, residence, income, or education, each and every voter will be a winner over fifty percent of the time. These results by Hajnal and Louch are illustrated in the following table that was compiled from the authors calculation of data from the Los Angeles Times exit polls.
I repeat for emphasis. Regardless of race, ethnicity, party affiliation, age, residence, income, or education all voters through the initiative, referendum, and recall process of citizen lawmaking win fifty percent of the time. This is a major advancement over the one-dollar- one vote political system we know today where all the important issues are bought up before we even get to vote, and it is a major step towards a truly democratic society.
An excerpt from, Learn or Die: The New American Revolution by Marcello Tino
Cites
1. Hajnal, Zoltan, Hugh Louch, Are There Winners and Losers? Race, Ethnicity and California's Initiative Process, Public Policy Institute of California
2. Mafleby, David, Direct Legislation: Voting on Ballot Propositions in the United States, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 1984
Charts
1. Chart #1 Popularity of Initiative, PPIC Statewide Survey, January 2000 from Are there Winners and Losers? Race, Ethnicity and California's Initiative Process by Zoltan Hajnal and Hugh Louch, Public Policy Institute, California, 2001 pg. 45
2. Chart #2 Percentage of Voting for Winning Side, Are there Winners and Losers? Race, Ethnicity and California's Initiative Process by Zoltan Hajnal and Hugh Louch, Public Policy Institute, California, 200 pg. 46
Illustration
1. Illustration #1 Power to the People, Marcello Tino and Andrea Dalla Bon, Learn or Die: The New American Revolution, Thompson and Prince 2020
Comentarios