I’ll write more here in the weeks to come about Gov. Brown’s bad decision to sign a bill raising the ballot initiative filing fee from $200 to $2,000—by far the highest in the country. But before the ink is still dry, let me raise one very practical issue that should be dealt with quickly by those who supported this bill.
Raising the filing fee could lead to more errors and problems with initiatives.
Why? Here’s the potential problem. Raising the fee to file an initiative creates an incentive not to file. And maybe that’s a fine incentive if you’re filing an initiative that grossly violates human rights. But such filings are, thank goodness, the exception, not the rule.
No, many of the filings of the initiatives are alternatives to other initiatives. More responsible initiative sponsors will file multiple versions of the same measure, or corrected versions of previous measures.
Some of this strategic – the sponsors are shopping for donors by making a tweak, or maybe thinking they can get a more favorite title and summary with an alternative version. But many of these multiple filings are to fix errors that have been detected in earlier versions of the measure.
Will raising the fee dissuade initiative backers from filing these corrected measures? Certainly $2,000 isn’t a lot of money to many of the super-rich interests and people behind most measures. But not everyone who actually files measures is super-rich (though they’ll need to find super-rich donors to get on the ballot). And even people with money can be cheap.
This may seem like a minor detail, but minor details are always big deals when it comes to the California initiative process. None of the so-called initiative reform we’ve seen have dealt with the fundamental, distinguishing problem of our system: once an initiative has passed, it’s very difficult to change it.
There were many reasons not to raise this fee. This is another one.