The Battle Over Citizen Lawmaking: The Growing Regulation of Initiative and Referendum

By M. Dane Waters

There is little doubt that in recent years the initiative process has become one of the most important mechanisms for altering and influencing public policy at every level of government. In the last two years alone, utilizing the initiative process, citizens were heard on affirmative action, educational reform, term limits, tax reform, campaign finance reform, animal protection, drug policy reform, and the environment. However, the initiative process has fallen prey to its own success. Lawmakers who have been most affected by this citizen?s tool have struck back by imposing new regulations on the process ? regulations that serve no purpose but to deprive the citizens of the only avenue available to them to reign in unresponsive government. These regulations have generated many questions that have so far remained unanswered or have been discussed only in specialist journals. There are legal questions about signature gathering and limits on campaign spending, political questions about implementing the relevant statutes, and philosophical questions about equality and freedom of expression. The Battle Over Citizen Lawmaking discusses the evolution of the initiative and referendum process, the need for the process, how it has been utilized, the impetus for new regulations, the major regulations that have been imposed, the role the courts have played in regulating the initiative and referendum process, what role money plays, and how the process has been regulated in other countries. This book comprehensively addresses these issues from the viewpoint of leading scholars, opinion leaders, journalists, elected officials, activists, and attorneys.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0890899681
• ISBN13: 9780890899687
• Release Date: April 2001
• Publisher: Carolina Academic Press
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Best book available on initiative and referendum

The initiative and referendum process was used more during the 1990s than it had been for decades. The people have used the process to cut taxes, protect animals and the environment, enact public health care laws, impose term limits on their legislatures, and much more. State legislatures have reacted by curtailing the process, in effect opposing this challenge to their power by the people they are supposed to represent. The Battle Over Citizen Lawmaking describes this struggle as well as teaching us a great deal about initiative and referendum in America.Of all the books written about the initiative process in recent years, The Battle Over Citizen Lawmaking stands out as the best. The book, written by scholars, journalists, and activists and edited by the President of the Initiative and Referendum Institute, gives an account of the history of the initiative process and the reasons both for and against increased regulation. Unlike many other works on the subject, it is scupulously fair to all points of view.Although it is intended as a textbook for political science classes - and is a very good one indeed - The Battle Over Citizen Lawmaking is also suitable for the informed general reader. If you plan to read only one book about the initiative process, read this one.