(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.
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
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)
The US government is the major holdout to these international agreements
- Ottawa Treaty (the land-mine ban)
- Treaty on the Rights of the Child (only holdouts are the U.S. and Somalia)
- Protocol to enforce the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (vote was 178-1, the US the only holdout)
- United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
- International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
- Convention on Biological Diversity
- International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families
- 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
"...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.
Past Initiatives since 1904
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
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