Is This Really What Hiram Johnson Had in Mind?
By Peter Schrag
We probably don’t need a lot more evidence that what passes for democracy in America has gone badly awry. But a quick look at the 16 measures that have been proposed so far for next year’s California ballot should strengthen the case just a bit more.
That it’s occurring just as we approach this October’s centennial of California’s adoption of the initiative, referendum and recall, makes the case especially ironic.
“The money changers—the legions of Mammon and of Satan,” wrote C.K. McClatchy, the editor of the Sacramento Bee, in 1911 after Californians voted what’s now called “direct democracy” into the state constitution. “These have been lashed out of the temple of the people.”
Like McClatchy, Gov. Hiram Johnson, who had been elected the prior year, was a Progressive who was convinced that the initiative and referendum, which he championed, would immunize California against the corruption and general misgovernment that had long afflicted his state.