History of direct democracy in the United States
[1] The legislatures of the New England colonies were initially governed as popular assemblies, with every freeman eligible to directly vote in the election of officers and drafting of laws.
Within a couple of years, the growth of the colonies population and geographic distance made these meetings impractical and they were substituted for representative assemblies.
New Jersey labor activist James W. Sullivan visited Switzerland in 1888 and wrote a detailed book that became a bible for reformers pushing the idea: Direct Legislation by the Citizenship Through the Initiative and Referendum (1893).
[5][6] Inspired by exposés written by investigative journalists (the famous muckrakers), and correlations between special interests' abuses of farmers and special interests' abuses of urban workers, self-styled progressives formed local and state citizen organizations to oppose corruption and giant monopolies ("trusts").
Advocates insisted that the only way to make the founding fathers' vision work was to take the "misrepresentation" out of representative government with the sovereign people's direct legislation (Special Committee of the National Economic League, 1912).
Most notably, residents of Texas rejected the referendum because the version put on the ballot by the legislature required 20% of the vote.
Other states where the constitutional amendments to place direct democracy failed include Mississippi, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
Arenza Thigpen Jr. is a petition drive manager (a type of political consultant) & international direct democracy activist.
[10][11] Arenza is the admin of a Facebook Group named ILSG with 1,400 petitioners & hosts a Sunday night weekly conference.
It was only the fifth time, since Nevada had gained citizen lawmaking in 1912, that the referendum on an existing state law had been used (Erickson, Questions On The Ballot).
With an approving majority of over sixty percent, Nevada voters gave a degree of legitimacy to the standing law that no small number of legislators could ever invoke in such a visceral controversy.
With the legislature legally taken out of the picture, and the referendum's large legitimacy recognized by both sides, the controversy quickly quieted.
The success of combining direct democracy governance components with a unicameral legislature has stood the test of time.
However, proponents of direct democracy argue that the public acts as an additional check to their elected representatives' power in these cases, not a subversion.
General Growth Properties collected signatures for a referendum in Glendale, California to stop development of a competing mall next door, developed by competitor Caruso Affiliated, in addition to standard political techniques such as lobbying and filing lawsuits challenging the project's environmental impact report.
For example, California's "Three Strikes" proposition, intended for violent felons, has sent a number of persons to prison for life for included offenses as small as stealing pizza.
However, proponents of Three Strikes argued that such consequences were akin to a "lifetime achievement award", since a potential third striker would have to have committed two violent and serious felonies beforehand.
There have been attempts to change the law, most recently Proposition 66,[30] which failed to pass after several loopholes were exploited by opponents of Three Strikes restructuring.
