Contemporary American History, 1877-1913Beard, Charles A. (Charles Austin)
History
Contemporary American History, 1877-1913
Beard, Charles A. (Charles Austin)
United States -- History -- 1865-1921
It should be pointed out, however, that there is a conservative and a
radical system of initiative and referendum: one which fixes the
percentage necessary to initiate and adopt a measure at a point so high
as to prevent its actual operation, and another which places it so low
as to make its frequent use feasible. The older and more radical group
of propagandists, finding their general scheme so widely taken up in
practical politics, soon began to devote their attention rather to
attacking the stricter safeguards thrown up by those who gave their
support to direct government in theory only.
In its simple form of initiation by five per cent of the voters and
adoption by a majority of those voting on the measure submitted, this
new device was undoubtedly a revolutionary change from the American
system of government as conceived by the framers of the Constitution of
the United States--with its checks and balances, indirect elections, and
judicial control over legislation. The more radical of the advocates of
direct government frankly admitted that this was true, and they sought
to strengthen this very feature of their system by the addition of
another device, known as the recall, which, when applied to judges as
well as other elective officers, reduced judicial control over
legislation to a practical nullity. Where judges are elected for short
terms by popular vote and made subject to the recall, and where laws
are made by popular vote of the same electors who choose the judges, it
is obvious that the very foundations of judicial supremacy are
undermined.
The recall, like direct democracy, was not new to American politics.
Both were understood, at least in principle, by the framers of the
Federal Constitution and rejected decisively. The recall seems to have
made its appearance first in local form,--in the charter of Los Angeles,
adopted in 1903. From there it went to the Seattle charter of 1906, and
two years later it was adopted as a state-wide system applicable to all
elective officers by Oregon. Its progress was swiftest in municipal
affairs, for it quite generally accompanied "the commission form" of
city government as a check on the commissioners in their exercise of
enlarged powers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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