It’s a recurring theme almost every election year here in California: some voters, many of them progressive, proclaim a “no on everything” stance on the ballot propositions. Intended as a protest at the flawed initiative process, this approach is little more than unilateral disarmament in the face of a concerted right-wing, corporate-funded effort to destroy California’s prosperity and democracy. Instead of making a futile gesture that won’t help fix California’s woes, progressives need to make intelligent choices on the November ballot – some of which involve a Yes vote.
I’ve been having this discussion on Facebook with several friends this past week, but one of the most prominent exponents of the “no on everything” approach is Markos Moulitsas. He’s mentioned this many times on Daily Kos, with one of the clearest articulations coming in January 2008:
My default position is to vote “no” on all of them (except for the ballot initiative to eliminate the ballot initiative, I’d vote “yes” for that one). Is there a really good reason I should consider casting a “yes” vote for any of them? For those of you following Golden State politics closely, please chime in.
Update: Thanks for the advice guys. I’m sticking with “no” on everything. I hate ballot box budgeting and changes to the state constitution make me leery. So while I was as conflicted as the community on 92, since it’s a worthy cause, any conflict is resolved toward the negative.
This is one form of an argument that usually goes something like this: “it’s the legislature’s job to make laws, not the voters’. I’m going to vote no on everything because I don’t want the system to get screwed up even worse.”
There’s no doubt that the ballot initiative process in California is flawed and needs reform. But to vote “no” on all initiatives, regardless of their content, is to declare unilateral disarmament in the middle of a political war. A no vote on all initiatives, even progressive initiatives, hands victory to the right-wing and the corporations when it comes to progressive initiatives that are usually difficult to pass.
The fact is that the initiative process, like the United States Senate, is massively flawed but is also part of our politics. We cannot simply refuse to fight because we don’t like the process. Just as no sensible progressive would suggest we boycott US Senate elections this fall in a protest against the failure of the Senate to address this country’s problems, no sensible California progressive should suggest we surrender the ballot initiative fight in a protest against the flaws of that process.
Like a vote for Ralph Nader, or a decision to not vote at all, a “default no” on ballot propositions is a particularly pointless act of political protest. It does not do anything to help improve the state legislature, because as Joe Mathews and Mark Paul have very ably explained in their new book California Crackup, the legislature is broken not just because of the initiative process but because of things like the 2/3rds rule and other systematic problems that cannot be addressed solely by initiative reform.
Further, the “default no” approach is flawed because it so often hands victory to corporations when progressives refuse to support progressive policies that can only be enacted at the ballot box. In 2006 and again in June 2010 some form of public financing went onto the ballot, and in June it suffered a particularly close defeat. Any progressive who voted No on Prop 15 because they take a “default no” on the initiatives helped hand a major victory to corporations while undermining one of the most important progressive goals we have today: public financing of elections.
The November 2010 ballot provides a textbook – and very important – example of how a “no on everything” vote undermines not only progressives, but actually blocks an effort to fix the legislature so “they can do their jobs” and hopefully lead to fewer flawed ballot measures.
Proposition 25 would restore majority rule to the budget process. It would end the 2/3rds requirement to pass a budget, which has led to crippling gridlock in Sacramento as budgets are routinely delayed not by weeks but by months as right-wingers use their veto power conferred on them by the 2/3rds rule to undermine progressive proposals and further worsen an already broken budget and government.
Someone taking a “default no” approach to the November 2010 initiatives would therefore be prolonging the gridlock in the legislature and would be joining such progressive leaders as Chevron, the California Chamber of Commerce, Meg Whitman, the Howard Jarvis Association, and Tom McClintock in defeating a proposal that would restore some progressive power and help enable further reforms to fix the legislature. In this case in particular, a “default no” from any progressive becomes worse than futile – it becomes a de facto vote for right-wing policy.
We can see other examples of this on the November 2010 ballot. Prop 24 would hike taxes on large corporations by closing a tax loophole created in the 2008 and 2009 budget deals. Are progressives seriously going to oppose that? Prop 21 would guarantee the long-term future of state parks as well as freeing up hundreds of millions of dollars each year to the general fund. Why would progressives oppose this, and put state parks at jeopardy of being sold off to private developers?
Good progressive political activism is that which engages in the fights that are before us, while also making long-term plans to improve the battlefield itself. We absolutely must reform the initiative process, as part of a broader fix to California’s broken government. But we won’t get there with the unilateral disarmament of a “no on everything” approach to ballot propositions. Progressives need to get informed and make the right decisions.
Thankfully, there are resources out there to help you. The Courage Campaign – where I work as Public Policy Director – has produced a Progressive Voter Guide that you can get by clicking that link or by texting VOTECA to 30644. It includes recommendations on the ballot propositions from Courage Campaign, CREDO Action, and a range of other major statewide organizations.
There’s no excuse for handing a victory to the right-wing and the corporations by voting no on important progressive propositions like Prop 21, Prop 24, and especially Prop 25. Let’s make sure that progressives make the right choice this election, instead of giving up the fight and letting the enemy win by default.
Prop 25 has allowed a radical minority to blackmail the majority for 40 years. It is anti-democratic. It is very important that Prop 25 passes.
Look at the current budget, or any over the last few years, tax breaks for corporations paid for by cuts to education and social services. This budget does not reflect the will of the people. It reflects the will of a radical minority.
I have the greatest respect for Kos. I am at DK every day. I certainly wish he would re-think his no on everything approach at least in the case of Prop 25.
I have strong feelings about many things on the ballot but we are never going to get anywhere in CA until the radical minority is put in its proper place. And, as pointed out here, if Brown wins and 25 passes we can revisit the draconian cuts (as well as Arnold’s line item vetos) in the current budget and get California moving again.
Keep in mind. In poll after poll when asked how the budget mess should be fixed most people say it should be a mix of cuts and taxes. When you make the question would you rather see cuts to education or higher taxes like 70% say higher taxes.
And the funny thing about all this is something like a 1.5% sales tax increase would mean billions.
I digress.
Yes on 25!
because the tax cut laws passed during back door budget negotiations, including ABx3 15, have not yet gone into effect.
So what do you suggest, Robert? An organized campaign for him to endorse Prop 25 on the diaries of DKos? Done with a light-hearted touch, it could be fun! “Surrender, Markos!”
could just abstain on 25 and vent their “no” ya-yas on 26. At least that’s worth half a vote.
25
__
26!
….err, in principle. And sometimes you gotta contradict your own principles.
The argument is more than just the purity of the legislative function. It’s that we strangle the ability to use revenues effectively, as a state, when we fix certain spending categories inflexibly via Constitution.
In this election, the classic problem is the car tax / state parks initiative. I had planned to vote against it on this principle, but I’ve wavered and will vote for — but only because it actually functions to enlarge the pie itself (by increasing the car tax), rather than inflexibly splitting up the existing pie.
But it’s still kind of a sucky way to run things. Let’s call it Gray Davis’ revenge (i.e., in getting back a bit of the car tax that Schwarzenegger immediately decimated upon groping office).
Markos, like Move-On, is painfully inept when it comes to California politics. He just doesn’t get it.
Robert, you’re right and you’re wrong. Of course the field should not be given up to political opponents just because you don’t like the kind of grass the battle is fought on. the initiative process is a joke, but until its fixed, we have to make do.
You’re wrong in your political bias that the default “no” position hands an advantage to any political philosophy. It does not.
If you look at the propositions on this November’s ballot I see more of a labor thumb on the initiative scale than a business one. Proposition 26 is the only one put forward by the Chamber of Commerce, but labor and other left leaning groups are sponsoring 21, 24, 25, and 27,. (19 is a social issue and isn’t relevant, and the business community is split down the middle on 23) Labor and the left in general have benefitted greatly from the initiative process and use it liberally (pun intended) to their advantage….as does the Chamber of Commerce and the right, neither side is without blame. They are both guilty of abusing a flawed system.
Kos is correct in that the default “no” position shifts the burden of responsibility back onto the legislature where the people at least have a fighting chance of getting a say….of course that institution is deeply flawed also and needs reform, but its still the better option.
Unless the voters send a message to the legislature to legislate and to the powerful special interests, business and labor alike, that the initiaitve process is a waste of their PAC dollars, we will keep getting more of the same.
1. we need to keep the redistricting commission and allow them to draw rational districts.
2. we need to enact real campaign finance reform.
3. we need a much bigger legislature with more accountability.
4. we need to end term limits.
we need to end the 2/3 budget rule so that one party/caucus actually owns the budget and takes responsibility for it…that way the voters know who to blame.
5. we need to reform the initiative process to make it illegal to pay for signatures and to raise the signature requirement so that only truly popular ideas make it to the ballot, not those funded by deep pocketed interests from either side of the spectrum.
In order for a “take my ball and go home” strategy to work, your ball has to be necessary to the game being played.
So true. . . .Kos has been wrong about this. As a teacher in Ca. sometimes the initiative process must be used or we keep losing. e.g. Prop 98 really helped us, while about 90% of the initiatives hurt/will hurt us.
I would argue that a default of “no” is the right answer for propositions you don’t understand. Because of the misleading titles often given on the ballot you really can’t make up your mind in the voting booth. (“Of course I want to defend marriage. Wait. It does what????”)
But the correct solution is not just to accept this default position, but to make sure people understand what the proposition actually does. Yes, that takes money for ads, etc., but it also requires those of us who care to educate those we know or come in contact with. I’m having some luck pitching Prop 25 as a way to “stick it to those idiots in Sacramento.” (I try not to get too specific about which idiots I’m talking about.)
But I almost never vote my default.
I read all the ballot propositions, including the text of the law changes in the CA booklet sent out, and I try to make an informed, rational decision about the propositions before me. I rarely read the arguments in the booklet, although I sometimes see who signed them — support from the Howard Jarvis group is enough to convince me to vote otherwise, for example.
So, I try to do my best.
But, were I faced with a ballot proposition that I did not know about, for whatever reason, and did not have time to research (this sometimes can happen on the local level where there is less information) my default is no — simply because of the law of unintended consequences. If I don’t know what the proposition is about, yes is out of the question.
Why is the progressive case against 20?
Is it simply because a Republican is for it? Seems a little knee-jerky to me. I read the other day that this will actually help the democratic #s.
Some guidance please….
…and to continue to advocate for a ban on paid signature gathering.
Maybe I need to think this through, but I’d like to retain the citizen’s initiative in a limited form as a part of the “checks and balances”… kinda like the Governor’s veto. All signatures to be gathered by volunteers only, and limit initiatives to statutory legislation only. No tinkering with the State Constitution.
It’s possible that banning paid signature gathering could give some advantage to church groups like those that pushed Prop-8 onto the ballot. But it might be worth the risk.
He’s too young to have been a Republican when they still had some principles.
So the only way he could decide on that is by falling for one or the other BS.
And he hasn’t changed. This is just one more proof of that.
What a jerk.
Are you opposed to Prop 20 simply because democrats might lose a seat or two? really? Are you advocating that we maintain a corrupt nepotistic system of drawing district boundaries simply because it favors your team? are you a reformer or not?
The redistricting commission was but together by non partisan good government groups not by Charles Munger. So what if his money is funding it, provided it gives us a better system of governance.