Product Description

Now in paperback, how initiatives are remaking our democracy, creating a hazardous new arena of politics.

Where once most state laws were passed by legislatures, now voters in half the states and hundreds of cities decide directly on such explosive issues as drugs, affirmative action, casino gambling, assisted suicide, and human rights. Ostensibly driven by public opinion, the initiative process is far too often manipulated by moneyed interests, often funded by out-of-state millionaires pursuing their own agendas.

In this highly controversial book, David Broder, the "dean of American political journalism" (Brill's Content), explains how a movement that started with Proposition 13 in California is now a multimillion-dollar business in which lawyers, campaign consultants, signature gatherers, and advertising agencies sell their expertise to interest groups with private agendas.

With a new afterword updating the results of the most recent elections and discussing the potential for future initiatives, Broder takes the reader into the heart of these battles as he talks with the field operatives, lobbyists, PR spinners, labor leaders, and business executives, all of whom can manipulate the political process.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #787747 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 300 pages

Amazon.com Review
Longtime Washington Post scribe David S. Broder, considered by many to be the dean of Beltway journalists, delivers a pounding attack on ballot initiatives in Democracy Derailed. Available to voters in half the states and in hundreds of municipalities ("from New York City to Nome"), initiatives allow citizens to skirt the legislative process and put measures directly before voters. And this, writes Broder, "is alien to the spirit of the Constitution and its careful system of checks and balances." Furthermore, it "threatens to challenge or even subvert the American system of government in the next few decades." Broder begins with a history of initiatives, which grew out of the well-intentioned Populist and Progressive movements, quickly arriving at the present day and the numerous controversial measures on subjects ranging from taxes to campaign finance. Much of the book is devoted to the 1998 election cycle, with particular attention paid to California's Proposition 226--the paycheck-protection initiative that would have limited the ability of labor unions to spend members' dues on political activities. The fact that it ultimately failed doesn't undercut Broder's message, because so many other measures have been passed in California and elsewhere. The real strength of Democracy Derailed, however, isn't in its arguments against ballot initiatives, but in its description of how the business behind them really works. Broder spots moneyed interests everywhere; others will merely see citizens choosing to spend their dollars on politics. On one point Broder is indisputably correct: initiatives represent a grossly "unexamined arena of power politics." With this book, they become better understood. --John J. Miller

From Publishers Weekly
Now available in 24 states and the District of Columbia, the voter initiative process has been used to abolish affirmative action, expand casino gambling and deny educational and health benefits to the families of illegal immigrants. It has forced yes-or-no votes on issues as diverse as nude dancing and term limits, and, according to Pulitzer prize-winning Washington Post and syndicated columnist Broder (Changing of the Guard), it threatens to subvert the American form of representative government by allowing millionaires and special interests to rewrite state laws. In this well-argued and often chilling study, Broder scrutinizes the initiative process and delves into what one critic calls a "multimillion-dollar cottage industry" populated by paid signature gatherers, pollsters and public-relations firms. He finds democracy run amok: three wealthy men changed the drug laws of five states; billionaire Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen threw cash into a campaign to publicly finance a stadium for the Seattle Seahawks, a team he owned. The public, in turn, was stunned by initiatives and counterinitiatives on which anti-abortion, anti-hunting and pro-casino gambling forces, among many others, spent a quarter of a billion dollars in the 1998 election cycle alone. The centerpiece of the book is a balanced but tough-minded analysis of Proposition 226, the so-called "paycheck protection initiative" defeated in California after a viciously fought battle in 1998. Broder dissects the sloganeering of both sides to confirm a lobbyist's cynical assessment of the campaign as "a lotta little lies fighting one big lie." As tensions rise between direct democracy and representative government in America, this book gives a provocative critique of the initiative process as a panacea for democracy's ills. Author tour. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Syndicated Washington Post columnist Broder examines initiatives--"the most uncontrolled and unexamined arena of power politics"--and their potential long-term impact on the nation. This electoral "reform" devised by Populists and Progressives a century ago, Broder argues, brushes aside the Founding Fathers' rejection of direct democracy, and, over the last several decades, the initiative process has "become the favored tool of millionaires and interest groups that use their wealth to achieve their own policy goals." Broder traces the history that gave citizens of 24 states and many smaller jurisdictions the right to put their issues on the ballot and describes in detail the "initiative industry" of signature-collectors, attorneys, and consultants that, for the most part, has replaced volunteers and activists. Broder draws examples from several states, notably Oregon (including multiple "physician-assisted suicide" votes) and California, whose Proposotion 13 tax rollback started the recent fascination with initiatives and whose 1998 campaign on "payroll protection" for union members is the subject of a focused chapter. Despite public cynicism about legislatures, Broder offers solid evidence that the initiative process, with its up-or-down simplicity and potential for manipulation by deep-pocket funders, is no solution to the nation's problems. Mary Carroll