Editorial: California initiatives tempered, not tamed
The corporate-backed ballot measures that preoccupied Sacramento lately were hardly the sort of people-powered direct democracy envisioned by Hiram Johnson, the founding father of California’s initiative process. And the frenzied lawmaking that unfolded under a recent revise of Johnson’s reform looked more like something attributable to Hiram Walker, the whiskey distiller accidentally cited by a legislator groping for the early 20th century governor’s name.
Under changes enacted in 2014 to temper ballot measure excesses and encourage compromise legislation, lawmakers scrambled to make deals to withdraw measures from the November ballot by Thursday’s deadline. The results were motley.