The Initiative & Referendum Institute (IRI)Back


 
The Initiative & Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California is affiliated with the Center for the Study of Law and Politics at the same university. In spite of efforts several attempts have been made in Congress and in the states, and efforts made by organizations like the IRI, national initiative and referendum has not yet developed in the United States. Local initiatives and referendums, however, are the central mechanisms for direct democracy in the country. Every state has some form of the legislative referendum process which allows the government to place an amendment or statute on the ballot for voter approval or rejection. The IRI website contains a comprehensive collection of information regarding such local initiatives and referendums. It also contains an interesting collection of referendum ballots and voter guides from the United States and countries around the world (see http://www.iandrinstitute.org/samples.htm).
 
The following article retrieved from the IRI website on 5 December 2004, entitled "What is the initiative and referendum process?" gives a tidy summary of the situation in the United States.
 
Anything that appears on the ballot other than a candidate for office is called a ballot measure. Ballot measures are broken down into two distinct categories - initiatives and referendums.
 
Initiatives
 
Initiatives are when the citizens, collecting signatures on a petition, place advisory questions, memorials, statutes or constitutional amendments on the ballot for the citizens to adopt or reject. Twenty-four states have the initiative process. Of the 24 states, 18 have the constitutional initiative process which is further broken down into two distinct subcategories - direct initiative amendments (DA) and indirect initiative amendments (IDA). A direct initiative amendment (DA) is when a constitutional amendment is proposed by the people and is placed directly on the ballot for voter approval or rejection. An indirect initiative amendment (IDA) is when a constitutional amendment is proposed by the people but must first be submitted to the state legislature for consideration before the amendment can be placed on the ballot for voter approval or rejection. Sixteen of the 18 states have the direct initiative amendment process and two have the indirect initiative amendment process.
 
Twenty-one of the 24 initiative states have the statutory initiative process which is further broken down into two distinct subcategories - direct initiative statutes (DS) and indirect initiative statutes (IDS). A direct initiative statute (DS) is when statutes (laws) or memorials (non-biding laws) proposed by the people are directly placed on the ballot for voter approval or rejection. An indirect Initiative statute (IDS) is when statutes (laws) or memorials (non-biding laws) proposed by the people must first be submitted to the state legislature for consideration before they can be placed on the ballot for voter approval or rejection. Fourteen of the 21 states allow direct initiative statutes (DS) and nine allow indirect initiative statutes (IDS). That adds up to 23 - which is greater than the universe of 21 states that allow statutory initiatives. The reason for the difference is that two states - Utah and Washington - allow statutory initiatives through the direct and indirect process.
 
Referendums
 
In many of the same states the citizens have the ability to reject laws or amendments proposed by the state legislature. This process is commonly referred to as the referendum process. There are two types of referendum in this country - popular and legislative.
 
Popular referendum, which is available in 24 states, is when the people have the power to refer, by collecting signatures on a petition, specific legislation that was enacted by their legislature for the people to either accept or reject. Legislative referendum, which is possible in all states (click here for list), is when the state legislatures, an elected official, state appointed constitutional revision commission or other government agency or department submits propositions (constitutional amendments, statutes, bond issues, etc.) to the people for their approval or rejection. This is either constitutionally required, as in proposing constitutional amendments, or because the legislature, government official or agency voluntarily chooses to submit the proposal to the people (however, not all states allow their state legislature to place statutes on the ballot for voter approval or rejection). Every state requires that constitutional amendments proposed by the legislature be submitted to the citizenry via legislative referendum for approval or rejection. Legislative referendum is further broken down into two subcategories. Legislative amendments (LA) are constitutional amendments placed on the ballot by the legislature or governmental body. This includes constitutional bond issues and amendments proposed by a constitutional revision commission. Legislative statues (LS) are binding and non-binding statutes (laws) and statutory bonds placed on the ballot by the legislature or government body.
 
In the United States, the initiative process is used much more frequently than the popular referendum process and is considered by many the more important and powerful of the two processes.
 
Additionally, there is no national initiative or referendum process in the United States. However, the initiative and referendum process is available in thousands of counties, cities and towns across the country and is utilized far more frequently than their statewide counterpart.