PD Editorial: Hasty change to initiative process

First things first: An initiative authorizing the slaughter of gays and lesbians - or anyone else, for that matter - is reprehensible.

It has no place on the ballot, and anyone peddling that kind of hatred deserves every bit of public opprobrium that follows, as it did when an Orange County lawyer named Matt McLaughlin submitted the “Sodomite Suppression Act” to the attorney general earlier this year.

No one will be voting on McLaughlin’s crackpot idea.

He wasn’t even allowed to gather signatures because a judge, correctly and predictably, determined that his proposal was unconstitutional.

Had McLaughlin been allowed to circulate initiative petitions, it’s extremely unlikely that 365,880 registered voters in California - the number required to qualify an initiative - would be willing to sign them.

We’re not convinced that he even planned to try. It’s quite likely that he was simply looking for attention, and he got plenty.

So legislators would be wise to let this ugly episode fade into memory rather than using it as an excuse to restrict access to the initiative process.

But it doesn’t look like that will happen.

Assembly Bill 1100, which was approved this week by the state Senate, would increase the filing fee for a state initiative tenfold, from $200 to $2,000. While that isn’t as steep as the $8,000 filing fee included in the bill when it cleared the Assembly in May, it’s still well beyond the means of most working-class Californians.

The initiative process was established a century ago to give citizens an alternative to the state Legislature, where special interests, especially railroads, controlled the levers of power.

As Hiram Johnson and his progressive allies understood, direct democracy - initiatives, referendums and recalls - is a check on corrupt government.

It’s true that special interests have commandeered the initiative process for their own ends, but erecting financial barriers won’t change that. And filing fees can’t distinguish good ideas from outrageous abuses of the system.

As we saw this past spring, there already are venues to address such abuses.

California voters also have approved some revisions to the process that could eliminate some of the drafting errors and unintended consequences that often crop up after initiatives have been passed. Beginning in 2016, legislators will be empowered to amend initiatives after they qualify and before they appear on the ballot, as long as the sponsors concur in the changes.

This process deserves a full test before legislators change the system any further.

As state Sen. Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, said during Monday’s floor debate on AB 1100: “The notion of a direct democracy, for better or worse, has become embedded in our constitutional psyche … This sends a message to the public that we want to put barriers up against their right to participate in the system.”

That message can still be recalled when AB 1100 returns for a final vote in the Assembly or if it lands on Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk.