The Failing Initiative

Maine may feel as if it couldn’t stand yet another round of referendums – four more were seeking signatures as of last week – but the state got off easy compared with many. Thirty-four states decided a total of 163 statewide questions Nov. 2; voters in Illinois were confronted with a total of 326 referendums, most of which were local and included nonbinding statements about the war, the Patriot Act, etc. One Chicago commentator said voters should feel relieved: In the 1990s, the number of referendums there topped 400 in some years.

If the number also falls here, that may be because referendums are not nearly as successful as they were in the last decade. A piece by Paul Carrier in the Nov. 7 Maine Sunday Telegram reports that the referendum success rate has dropped from about 75 percent then to 25 percent so far in this decade.

Those quoted in the article mention several reasons for this – the scope of the questions, their complexity, general weariness with referendum campaigns. But especially since the clear-cutting debates of the mid-1990s, a primary reason for the defeat of referendums could be that opponents have learned how to campaign against them.

A regular gripe against citizen’s initiatives is that a local group advocating for something – end clear-cutting, allow doctor-assisted suicide, ban bear baiting – is really just a proxy for a national group, which is using Maine to attract to its issue inexpensive exposure and support. This has, at times, been true, but out-of-state money flows as quickly now to opposition, and the result is a very expensive exercise in stasis.

Several of the referendums that passed in the 1990s had no organized opposition – term limits for legislators, another for members of Congress (later struck down in court) and public financing of campaigns among them. But consider issues such as doctor-assisted suicide in 2000, which had the Maine Medical Association in opposition, or, more recently, bear baiting, which had the Baldacci administration and Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine campaigning against it. Both questions began with public support, but organized and funded opponents swayed voters to reject them. A similar situation occurred in 2003, when opponents to a casino spent a lot of time and effort to defeat a proposal, which they did, but largely ignored a smaller racino question, which passed.

Dennis Bailey, former spokesman for Gov. Angus King and now president of Savvy Inc., which has run several successful campaigns against referendums, adds that the level of complexity of a referendum can also doom it. “People are OK with a casino, but they voted against that specific casino,” he said recently. “Same with the tax cap. Everyone wants lower taxes, but not the way [Carol] Palesky wrote it.”

Higher hurdles, such as more petition signatures, have been suggested in the past to ensure that only serious referendum questions, with a substantial public base standing behind them, make it before voters. But if their failure rate continues, it won’t be long before the system becomes self-regulating. That would be a pricey transformation, but likely a relief to most voters.