The Impact of Direct Democracy on Governance: A Replication and Extension

Abstract

DOI 10.1515/cjpp-2012-0021 Calif. J. Politics Policy 2013; 5(1): 30–46 Ly T. Lac and Edward L. Lascher Jr.* The Impact of Direct Democracy on Governance: A Replication and Extension Abstract: Does the state ballot initiative process affect American states’ ability to meet widely accepted standards of “good governance?” This question is rel- evant in many places, but especially in California which makes the heaviest use of the popular initiative. While much recent non-academic work suggests the process has ill effects in the Golden State and elsewhere, there has been little systematic scholarly investigation of this topic; the notable exception is R.J. Dalton’s work in 2008. Building on, updating, and extending his study, we examine whether the presence and extent of ballot initiative use affects Govern- ment Performance Project grades. Controlling for many other variables, we find a generally negative relationship between initiative use and such grades. This has worrisome implications for governance. Keywords: direct democracy; initiative process; government performance; quan- titative analysis. *Corresponding author: Edward L. Lascher Jr., Department of Public Policy and Administra­tion, California State University, Sacramento, CA, USA, E-mail: tedl@csus.edu Ly T. Lac: Department of Housing and Community Development, State of California, Sacramento, CA, USA 1 T he Impact of Direct Democracy on Governance: A Replication and Extension In their recent book advocating a drastic restructuring of California government, Joe Mathews and Mark Paul (2010, pp. 170–171) attribute much of the blame for the state’s woes to the initiative process. They claim that ballot measures have hamstrung the legislative process, led to an inflexible taxing and spending system, and reduced accountability. They write: “California has the most powerful – and thus the most inflexible – initiative process in the world. The legislature has no constitutional power to stop an initiative from reaching the ballot. Nor does the governor or any member of the executive branch… Such an inflexible system has many problems. Budget priorities can be locked in easily, and they persist even when revenues