ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 22, 1996 TAG: 9612240014
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD H. GENTRY
YOU'LL FIND your "right to petition the government for the redress of grievance" in Article 1 of the Virginia Constitution. It's also a right protected by the Bill of Rights. Question: What good is a right that can't be exercised?
Here's a grievance: I, you, we don't have the right to initiate law. Why not? The General Assembly majority fears direct democracy. In other words, the "elect" don't want just plain voters meddling in the "complicated" and "technical" activity of governing.
Voters in 24 states have the right to initiate laws or demand referendums on issues of great moment. It's incomprehensible that voters of Virginia, where democracy began, don't have such a right.
1997 is the year to make members of the exclusive 140 Club straighten up and take notice of the initiative-and-referendum issue. Remember, it's a sellers' market; they need your vote for election or re-election. And with the contest for governor, there will be added public awareness. So lots of politicians may be attentive to your views and your pressure on initiative and referendum (and recall?).
Frankly, if the members of the General Assembly were serious, really serious, about doing the right thing by providing this fundamental right of citizenship to you and me, we wouldn't have to wait for the elections. The January session could pass a reasonable bill providing the right. Then, were the same bill passed in 1998, you and I could vote on it as a constitutional amendment in November 1998.
I know, I know, it's a lousy way to amend the Constitution. But we're stuck with the creaky process until we can amend it more quickly - and directly. The two-year amendment process is a leftover product of an era when voters were simply expected to pay up, keep quiet and let "experts" govern.
I emphasized "reasonable" to make you wary of activities in the Capitol. If Senate Joint Resolution 91 (ostensibly an initiative-and-referendum bill) had passed in 1996, it would not have helped the cause one bit.
In most initiative-and-referendum states, the required number of petition signers is based on a reasonable percentage of the actual number of voters in the last gubernatorial election. The bill in the Virginia Senate would have required 15 percent of Virginia's registered voters to sign an initiative petition for a constitutional amendment - that is, 15 percent in each of the 90 counties and 40 cities in the state! That means 498,320 individuals' signatures. Compare that to California: With nearly five times our population and five times the number of registered voters, 450,000-plus voters put initiatives on their ballot in 1996 - about 8 percent of those who voted in their last gubernatorial election.
The proposed 1996 Virginia resolution also (a) directed citizen initiatives to the General Assembly for action, (b) limited matters that could be subject to initiative and (c) permitted the lawmakers to modify what the voters petitioned for.
You can readily see that legislators who propose outlandish petition requirements or impossible legislative hurdles, or both, are not serious about individual voters having initiative-and-referendum power - that is, a direct voice in governing.
In order to get a reasonable initiative-and-referendum bill to the voters, we are going to have to watch very closely what our representatives actually do, not just what they say about initiatives and referendums.
We voters are going to have to squawk loudly and continuously if any power is to be shifted, ever, from the General Assembly to the individual voter.
Richard H. Gentry, of McLean, is editor of a newsletter, Dear Citizen, and is former editor of the Virginia Letter on Public Business.
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