Aggressive Enforcement of the Single Subject Rule

Abstract

Most states require voter initiatives to embrace only a single subject, and courts have invalidated many initiatives for violating the single subject rule. Critics argue that the definition of a “subject” is infinitely malleable, so that if judges attempt to enforce the single subject rule aggressively, their decisions will be based on their personal views rather than neutral principles. We investigate this argument by studying the decisions of state appellate court judges in five states during the period 1997–2006. We find that judges are more likely to vote to uphold an initiative against a single subject challenge if their partisan affiliations suggest they would be sympathetic to the policy proposed by the initiative. More important, we find that partisan affiliation is highly consequential in states with aggressive enforcement of the single subject rule—the rate of voting to uphold an initiative jumps from 41 percent when a judge agrees with the policy to 83 percent when he disagrees—but not very consequential in states with restrained enforcement. The evidence suggests that it may be possible to apply the single subject rule in a neutral way when the judiciary is restrained, but with aggressive enforcement decisions are likely to be driven by the political preferences of judges.