Clare Letmon

Date of Award

2013

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Fitzgerald, Keith

Keywords

US Politics, Direct Democracy, Proposition 13, Ballot Initiatives

Area of Concentration

Political Science

Abstract

A citizen-initiated ballot initiative is a proposed law that citizens petition to place directly on the ballot to be decided on by the people. Following the passage of California's property tax-slashing Proposition 13 in 1978, many states have experienced a significant increase in ballot initiative use across a wide range of issues. The goal of this project was to understand how political and economic institutions developed and interacted over time to encourage increased initiative use from an institutional perspective. This study posits that Proposition 13 and the tax revolts catalyzed increased initiative use by adding another layer of difficulty to state legislative processes that were already facing new institutional challenges. In order to determine how this process occurred, this study compared and evaluated the expansion and diversification of interest groups, increased professionalism of state legislatures, and instances of divided government, in combination with the constraining institutional effects of Proposition 13 and the tax revolts in several states as developments that made influencing state legislatures increasingly difficult and encouraged initiative use since 1978. Qualitative case study analyses of California, Arizona, Massachusetts, Washington, North Dakota, and Oklahoma indicate that increasingly large and diverse interest group populations, in combination with tax-cutting reforms and more professional legislatures, may encourage increased initiative use. States that lacked the economic development and diversity that necessitated the expansion of interest groups also lacked the growth of government that precipitated calls for tax reform and subsequent increase in initiative use. Proposition 13 and tax reforms acted as a reinforcing mechanism by shifting local financial responsibilities to the states which increased demand for state resources while simultaneously constraining state budgets. As a result, facing increased competition and diluted influence, groups increasingly turned to initiatives to guarantee funding and bypass more competitive and difficult legislative processes.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida Libraries, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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