Facts and Arguments about the Introduction of Initiative and ...

the proposition and the highest official responsible for the local
public school network coolly declared that the proposition
would not be implemented. This was despite the fact that the
initiative was approved at state level and the equality principle
requires that the proposal be equally applied throughout the
entire state. In fact, the fate of Proposition 227 shows that the
legislator should not meddle with internal education issues.
If the state leaves such choices to the schools, they can select
for each issue what seems the best for themselves, and the
state does not need to impose a uniform regime.
In 1990, the voters approved Proposition 140. This proposal
introduced, on the one hand, term limits for members of parliament
and, on the other, also scaled back the funds for the
members of parliament to approximately 80% of the previous
level. The objective of the initiative was to combat the creation
of a class of lifelong professional politicians. Term limits limit
the time during which a person can occupy a legislative and/
or executive political office. Proposition 140 imposed a maximum
term of six to eight years. Of course such a proposal
cannot count on the approval of the members of parliament
themselves. It is, however, effectively impossible to actually
circumvent term limits once they have been approved. The
political leaders in California have exhausted all possible legal
remedies without success in the hope of reversing the term
limits. The last judgment was finally handed down in 1997. In
the meantime, thanks to the approved proposition, the members
of parliament and those in top positions had already been
entirely replaced. The established powers had more success
with their attempts at reversing the financial restrictions introduced
by Proposition 140. Via the courts they succeeded in
overturning of the reduction in excessive pension provisions
for top politicians that had been approved by the people. Other
restrictions from Proposition 140 were left untouched by
the courts, but the political class swiftly succeeded in circumventing
the law by changing their accounting methods: “By
reclassifying agencies and moving their budgets outside the
realm of formal legislative spending, the legislature largely
circumvented the intent behind Proposition 140’s spending
limits. In doing so, they not only managed to maintain their
political staffs, they also retained the services of the agencies
whose funding they cut.” (Gerber, 2001, p. 54-55)
A recent example (not treated in Gerber’s book) of the arrogance
that politicians can demonstrate with respect to democratically
taken decisions was provided when the Californian
parliament approved a law that wanted to recognise samesex
marriages in that state. A referendum (Proposition 22)
on this question was held in March 2000 and a majority of
61.4% decided that a legal marriage could only take place between
a man and a woman. Despite this, the Californian parliament
subsequently did approved a law that allows samesex
marriages. Governor Schwarzenegger, however, used
his veto against this parliamentary act, saying that the will
of the people must be respected. Naturally, he was branded
as ‘extreme right-wing’ for this by his opponents. However,
Schwarzenegger left the possibility open that popular decisions
could still be reversed by the courts.
Germany: Bavaria and beyond
October 1 st 1995 was an important day for European democracy.
On that day, the citizens of Bavaria voted to grant themselves
many more rights to direct decision-making at the
levels of cities, municipalities and administrative districts
(Landkreisen) (Seipel and Mayer, 1997).
A limited form of direct democracy already existed at state
level in Bavaria prior to 1995. Citizens could launch legislative
initiatives and force a referendum on them. The threshold for
using this system was exceptionally high, however. In an initial
phase, 25,000 signatures had to be collected. Only then could
an application for a referendum be submitted. If the Ministry
of Internal Affairs [Innenministerium] formulated objections to
the initiative, the Constitutional Court had to give a ruling on
it. If the court saw no objections, there was a further stage,
during which 10% of those entitled to vote (around 900,000
citizens) had to go to their local government offices within a
two-week period to record their signatures as supporters of the
popular initiative. This second threshold was virtually unachievable,
so that referendums almost never took place in Bavaria
at the state level. The 1995 referendum was only the fourth
to be held since the Second World War. Moreover, politics in
Bavaria was and remains dominated by one political party, the
Christian-democratic CSU (Christian Social Union).
The story of ‘Mehr Demokratie’ (More Democracy) – the
movement that created a breakthrough for direct democracy
in Bavaria, including that via the 1995 referendum – is the
story of a double success. ‘Mehr Demokratie’ succeeded in
clearing the highest hurdles required to obtain a referendum
in Bavaria. But ‘Mehr Demokratie’ also succeeded in winning
against the opposition of the CSU, which stubbornly resisted
the introduction of direct democracy at the municipal level.
It was the first CSU defeat at the state level in 40 years.
The introduction of direct democracy in Bavaria can be considered
as being like an oil slick spilling over from Switzerland.
The fact that referendums were possible in Bavaria at
all, even if with far too high a threshold, is quite likely due
to the fact that the first Bavarian Prime Minister, Wilhelm
Hoegner, was in exile in Switzerland during WWII and
learned to appreciate the system there. Afterwards, he was
instrumental in putting the referendum into the Bavarian
constitution. Hoegner said in 1950: “The referendum is the
cornerstone of modern democratic municipal legislation”.
(Meyer and Seipel, 1997, p. 12)
The campaign for the 10% signatures
Between 6 and 19 February, ‘Mehr Demokratie’ had to surmount
an enormous hurdle. Within these two weeks, 10% of
the people entitled to vote had to hurry to their local government
offices, during opening hours, to add their signatures
to support the application for the municipal citizens’ initiative.
This very high threshold was comfortably exceeded:
13.7% of the Bavarians entitled to vote (or nearly 1.2 million
people) made the effort. The result is even more remarkable
when one considers the resistance from the official side that
existed in many places. For instance, many citizens were not
able to register their support because their local government
offices appeared to be closed during the legally stipulated
opening hours.
The reaction of the press was mainly positive, except for those
newspapers which traditionally backed the CSU. The Münchner
Merkur (Munich Mercury) newspaper of 21 February 1995
wrote condescendingly: “Jubilation about the fact that the
‘Mehr Demokratie in Bayern’ popular initiative achieved the
threshold would be inappropriate. In principle, Bavaria has
enjoyed democratic rights for a long time. Every citizen can
withdraw support from a municipal councillor or a municipal
council group at the next elections if they don’t like the decisions
coming from the administration...” On the same day, the