Difference between California Initiative Process and the National Initiative?

Thanks for the clarification guys. That really helped. Appreciate it.

Unfortunately Mike's proposal allows legislation by minority just as CA's intiative, and most if not all state initiatives, do.

The problem is that all any of them require for an initaitive to pass is for a plurality of votes in their favor. For example, if the turn out for an election is 60% and if all of those people actually vote on an initiative, unlikely in itself, then 51% of 60% = 31% of the registered voters enact legislation for 100% of the people. This allows money, which is unlimited under Mike's proposal, to come into play in a big way to enforce the will of a minority on the majority in the guise of "democracy". In the example above please note that most elections have turnouts of less than 60% and that not everyone voting in a given election will vote for or against a given initiative. As well having 2 out 3 of the eligible voters actually registered to vote is considered "good".

Although I am a great believer in direct democracy, and was and am inspired by Mike Gravel in my belief, I believe that the passage of Mike's proposal would be a disaster if it ever actually came about. I haven't even mentioned its other fatal flaw : the Electoral Trust.

I believe that people are rightly terrified of any proposal that will grant minorities such sweeping power, no matter that they are labeled "democratic".

The only way that "direct democracy" can be trusted by us, the people, is if it explicitly requires a majority of those eligible to vote in a given constituency to vote for a measure before it becomes law. That is only if it actually is democratic. This is the only way that such sweeping powers can be handled : let the people decide... Let ALL the people decide. Have a look at http://www.uspvp.org for my efforts to codify such a system, and feel free to lend a hand. That's another essential feature of direct democracy that is missing from Mike's proposal. Under Mike's system proposed legislation, such as Mike's proposal itself, is a "done deal" by the time the people are allowed to vote on it. All they can do is vote it up or down. The actual creation of the legislation itself is in the hands of representative bodies, chiefly the electoral trust.

I think that Mike's proposal took form before the sort of communications infrastructure that we have today was even imaginable. So Mike modeled the people's legislature on the representaive governments that he had been a part of for so much of his life. And now, after so many years' work, he is understandably reluctant to reopen the design of his proposal.

Direct democracy cannot be modeled on representative government. If it is... then it is just another level of representative government as MIke's proposal is. It won't be easy to create a truly democratic system of government but it is certainly worth the effort, in my view. As well, I think that anything less is doomed, that anything less will be rejected by the people as too little too late.

All of that last two paragraphs is my personal opinion, of course. Time will tell what the real state of affairs is, independent of what I or anyone else thinks. But I would argue that what precedes those last two paragraphs is fact.

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Times have changed. We are going to empower the American people. Let’s work together. I am tough. I’m not afraid. None of this politics as usual. -- Mike Gravel