A few years ago, I read Democracy Derailed: Initiative Campaigns and the Power of Money by David Broder. This book was largely focused on California because it has the largest and most active ballot initiative system in the country, but it did address several other states. The conclusion that I drew from his book is that it’s usually special interests behind these initiatives, they usually stand to make money off of them, and they usually win. When there’s some genuine public good behind an initiative, it will probably be opposed by some powerful special interest and it will lose. In many ways, the ballot initiatives are a kind of fake populism that look like direct democracy, but often bring us things that even the corporations might be shy about trying to get passed through the legislature. I knew I would not have time to do a thorough study of these phenomenon in this election or anything close to it. Instead, I decided to pick a couple of important, high profile initiatives and see if they further proved that thesis.

I chose follow to California Propositions 86 and 87. Prop 86 would put a steep new tax on cigarettes. It would put some of that money into smoking prevention programs, the rest into other healthcare programs. The steep new tax itself would be quite an incentive to quit smoking. Prop 87 would put a tax on oil that is drilled in California. That money would be used to fund research and initiatives with clean and renewable energy resources.

Both were, in my estimation, attempts at doing a genuine public good. Prop 86 was backed by the California branches of The American Cancer Society, The American Lung Association, the American Heart Association, and dozens of other health, medical, environmental, and community groups. Its opposition was financed by Big Tobacco. Prop 87 was backed by major environmental and health groups such as The American Lung Association and the Sierra Club and others It also received major public endorsements and television ads from Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Its opposition was sponsored by Big Oil, particularly by Chevron. Big Oil spent $100 million to defeat it.

Both lost.

It looks like I’m going to spend yet another four years living under the yoke of a Republican governor. In the last decade I’ve lived in a toss up state, and two of the bluest of the blue states. I haven’t lived under a Democratic governor since Lawton Chiles’ second term* ended with JEB!’s election. You know it’s bad for the Democrats when their candidate is even losing in the bay area. Recent polls of the bay area put Schwarzenegger up anywhere from four to eight points.

I have other thoughts and theories on this state’s elections, but since I’ve lived here less than a month, I’m not going to put any of that speculation on the record. Hopefully, by the next election, I’ll know enough about this state’s politics to make public pronouncements about them. I will share my thoughts after the results are in, though.  One nice thing about being on pacific time is that I’ll start seeing results shortly after 4:00pm and have a good picture of how things are going by 5:00 or 6:00.