Past Initiatives

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The National Initiative for Democracy


Televote

(This is ERIC (Educational Research Information Center, a US. govt. agency) document # ED107300. ERIC #s ED095896 and ED095897 are also about Televote. All are available from the ERIC Document Reproduction Service or (800) 443-ERIC.)

A New Civic Communication System

by Vincent Campbell and Janet Santos
February 1975

This publication was funded by the Research Applied to National Needs (RANN) Program of the National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C. [Grant No. GI-37183]

Editorial assistance from Sam Halsted, Stephanie Murphy, and Allen Shinn is gratefully acknowledged.


Grassroots ballot initiatives do better at the polls than big-money initiatives

Press release: Initiative Process: Money Doesn’t Buy Success at Ballot Box

Study: Interest Group Influence in the California Initiative Process

Book: The Populist Paradox: Interest Group Influence and the Promise of Direct Legislation


Ballot Initiatives

Initiative: "The right or procedure by which legislation may be introduced or enacted directly by the people, as in the Swiss Confederation and in many of the States of the United States;"
-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary

PAST Successes of State Initiatives

(Many were later adopted by Congress) (Mouseover)


37 broken international treaties: a broken record!

The US government is the major holdout to these international agreements

  1. Ottawa Treaty (the land-mine ban)
  2. Treaty on the Rights of the Child (only holdouts are the U.S. and Somalia)
  3. Protocol to enforce the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (vote was 178-1, the US the only holdout)
  4. United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
  5. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
  6. Convention on Biological Diversity
  7. International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families

Citizen Initiatives in 24 U.S. states

  • Alaska
  • Arizona
  • Arkansas
  • California
  • Colorado
  • Florida
  • Idaho
  • Illinois
  • Maine
  • Massachusetts
  • Michigan
  • Mississippi
  • Missouri
  • Montana
  • Nebraska
  • Nevada
  • North Dakota
  • Ohio
  • Oklahoma
  • Oregon
  • South Dakota
  • Utah
  • Washington
  • Wyoming

Source: Initiative Resource Center, San Francisco


End foreign military aid

"...another [1975] Harris poll reported '65% of Americans oppose military aid abroad because they feel it allows dictatorships to maintain control over their population.'"

Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States, p. 545, On p. 558 Zinn writes that other polls showed the same.


Switzerland's Initiatives

A list of Switzerland's current initiatives


Past Initiatives 1904-2000

Past Initiatives since 1904


Direct Democracy in Switzerland

Excerpts from Direct Democracy in Switzerland

By Gregory A. Fossedal, Chairman, Alexis de Tocqueville Institution

Forward by Alfred R. Berkeley III, vice-chair, NASDAQ

"More than half its [the Swiss Constitution's] provisions, as of the late 20th century, were derived from popular ballot initiatives or referenda voted on directly by the people." Pg X