Direct democracy voting for initiatives and referendums by the citizens on important issues started around two thousand
five hundred years ago In Athens, the cradle of democracy. About 590
B.C. power was granted to all the propertied classes,
thus establishing a limited democracy. About 500 B.C.,
democracy was extended to the freemen of Athens (women and slaves who made up more
than half of the population, and others were excluded). At that time, the city
population was approximately 100,000
(Polopolus) with possibly
surrounding areas. Of these, about 100,000 were citizens and about
30,000 were males entitled to vote. The voters were called the Ecclesia or Ekklesia—i.e.,
the Electorate. A quorum of the Ecclesia consisted of
Translation issue: The Athenian word Ecclesia is
often translated to mean an Assembly of Voters, i.e., the Electorate. However, in this web
site, the word Assembly is an abbreviation for the Citizens' Initiatives
Assembly. This double meaning of the word "Assembly" can sometimes be confusing
when hyper-linking and reading a text on ancient Greece.
To minimize confusion here, in the very few cases when the meaning of "assembly" is the
Ecclesia, the word Assembly is italicized. Similarly, our Citizens Initiatives Assembly or
Assembly is called the Council of 500 or Boule by the Athenians.]
Council of Five Hundred
(or Boule) was introduced, with important preliminary jurisdiction to
deputize when the regular meeting of all the Voters was not in session and
to select the agenda (i.e.,
select Candidate Direct Initiatives) for the Ecclesia (i.e., the Voters). The
Ecclesia met near the Agora on the Pnyx hill, which could seat about 6,000 on
its slopes. It is shown below with the Parthenon on the Acropolis in the background (photo
Adam Carr via
Wikipedia under GNU License). The selection of Council of Five Hundred members
was usually by lot and for only one year to prevent
the monopoly of the office of deputy by professional politicians.
Athenians had citizen initiators (Ho boulomenos—he who wishes). These
were citizens who exerted their right to propose a an issue, which they called a probouleumata,
for consideration by the Boule and potential consideration by the Ecclesia.
The Athenian probouleumata
corresponds with our initiative.
could be called to account for their actions, so abuse of their right had
By about 460
B.C., the transfer of power to the People who made all
important decisions, the Council of the Five Hundred, and the jury courts had
been completed. The city retained a substantial degree of direct democracy for 180 years—surviving
even its final defeat by Sparta in the Peloponnesian Wars—until its conquest by Macedonia
Athenian contribution to
culture and politics around the world has been profound—arguably more
important than that of any other society in the world's history. However,
the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution in 1787, a hundred years before the discovery of
Aristotle’s "Constitution of Athens", which had been lost in the 7th Century
and not rediscovered until 1880-1891.
Texts possessed by the Fathers quoted Greeks
who were critical of democracy—especially
Socrates who advocated a
republic led by philosophers. Madison was particularly critical, writing in
Federalist Papers No. 55
"In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character composed, passion never
fails to wrest the sceptre from reason. Had every Athenian citizen been a
Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob." Despite 140 years of direct democracy in New
England town meetings starting as early as the 1640's, there was
no evidence in
1787 that these small democracies could be scaled up for nationwide benefit.
To the Founding Fathers, it seemed necessary
that in a democracy all voters should assemble at a single location. The
methodology of a statistical random sample of the People for polling or to
select and qualify candidate initiatives developed over the period 1850-1930.
The Founding Fathers seemed unaware that the ancient Athenians considered their
city too large to assemble in one place. Their key
democratic assembly—The Council of Five Hundred—and juries were chosen by random
selection of citizens. The Council of Five Hundred managed everyday affairs and
set the agenda for much larger meetings of the citizens. It seems extraordinary
that the Athenians intuitively chose the right statistical
number of 500 for a good random sample!
The earliest use of a referendum in modern democracies was in 1793 in France when a
new constitution was submitted for popular vote. France, however, seldom used
referendums until around the mid 1900s.
Some Swiss Cantons adopted
referendums between 1831 and 1890 for both legislative measures and
Switzerland's constitution was drafted in 1848 (loosely modeled after the U.S.
Constitution, but incorporating direct democracy as well as federalism) and was
revised in 1874 and again in 1999.
p 90), Switzerland
included the right of initiative for changes to the federal constitution. Switzerland is a relatively small country with a population today of 7,300,000,
which speak four native languages though many are multi-lingual. It is
divided into 26 relatively autonomous Cantons with an average population of
280,000, though this varies widely among Cantons. Only 100,000 signatures (about
two percent of the voters) are required to
petition a popular vote on new federal legislation. Switzerland has four elections per year and is by far the greatest user of
initiatives and referendums that the world has ever known. In fact, Switzerland
is the only modern democracy that currently permits citizens to propose laws in
the form of [direct] initiatives (Long)
(though The Netherlands introduced national indirect initiatives—“consultative
corrective referendum” nor "non-binding
The key to the Swiss approach is to make decisions at the lowest appropriate
level—sometimes called subsidiarity or devolution.
It is unlikely to be a coincidence that over the
last one-hundred years, despite being in the middle of wars collectively
resulting in over 70 million deaths
from all causes, Switzerland has been amongst the most peaceful countries in the
world, has amongst the highest per-capita income, is universally
trusted (even if some believe Swiss financial privacy laws excessive), and has a quality of life
consistently among the top ten countries in the world. Some current trends are
lower voter turnout and excessive numbers of initiatives by special interests
that may result in future adjustments to the system.
Many other more recent democracies have used binding national referendums
during the last fifty years, some extensively and to great benefit. They include: Austria,
Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, South Africa,
and most recently in 2005 The Netherlands. (Belgium, Britain, and Finland use primarily consultative
or advisory referendums). In the past 200 years there have
been a little over 800 referendums held at national level; over 400 of them
(Butler & Ranney).
The Netherlands' 2005 consultative referendum rejecting the EU Charter, there remain only
established democracies that have
never held a national referendum: India, Israel, Japan, and the United States.
There have been some less positive referendum usage. In 1934,
Hitler used a state-sponsored national referendum to consolidate his power
The transition from a functioning democracy to a total dictatorship was rapid:
January 1933: President Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor.
March 1933: The Reichstag passed the Enabling Law
granting Adolf Hitler dictatorial power.
August 2, 1934: Hindenburg died.
August 19, 1934: A plebiscite
(i.e., referendum) of the German people ratified Hitler's dictatorship
as Der Führer and Chancellor.
In 1991 the Soviet Union under the leadership of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, used
several state-sponsored national referendums that must be blamed in part for the
chaos of the following ten years. State-sponsored national referendums tend to
be conducted with highly-charged emotion, state propaganda, and military
Direct Democracy started well before the U.S. Constitution in
New England town meetings and
school district meetings involving lawmaking by assembled voters. However, this
does not involve use of initiatives.
There has never been a
nationwide Initiative or Referendum in the U.S. The absence of a U.S. Initiative
is a possible consequence of the early date (1787) of our Constitution.
Subsequent constitutions in other countries, including the Swiss, were modeled on the U.S. Constitution
and often include them.
Major U.S. support for Initiatives and
Referendums came in the late 19th Century with the Populist and Progressive
movements, and were adopted by the first State (South Dakota) in 1898.
Modern U.S. systems of initiative and referendum
originated in the state of Oregon in 1902. The "Oregon
System", as it was at first known, was widely adopted by the other states.
In 1911, the
State of Wisconsin submitted
applications for a Federal constitutional convention, a constitutional
amendment to permit Federal
constitutional amendments by initiative, and a constitutional amendment
to permit Federal initiative,
referendum, and recall. However, nothing came of this effort.
Progressive party was formed in 1911 through 1912 by President
(1901-1909) Theodore Roosevelt. Its
platform called for the direct election of U.S.
Senators, the initiative, referendum, and
recall, woman suffrage, reduction of the tariff, and many social
reforms. It failed to elect a President in 1912, and was disbanded in 1916.
A war referendum plan was popular within the United States
from 1914 and especially in the 1920s and 1930s, and later in the 1970s.
Representative Louis Ludlow (D - Indianapolis, Indiana)
introduced the Ludlow Amendment several times
from 1935 to 1941; in spite of strong support in national opinion polls it was
returned to committee.
The issued reappeared again during the Vietnam war and a proposed constitutional amendment
was introduced in the House on April 1, 1971, using the exact text of
the earlier Ludlow Amendment. Again it failed
At the Subcommittee Hearings on the Constitution, S.J. Res 67
in December 1977, the case was argued by Ms.
Koupal for a Voter Initiatives Constitutional Amendment. The major conceptual
differences between their approach and that taken here are:
They proposed the State petition rather than the
Citizens' Initiatives Assembly method of qualifying Initiatives.
They supposed that Congress would take action
without considerable voter pressure.
Their approach dealt in generalities rather than
forcing the issue by a detailed plan that could be discussed and
analyzed, put to a vote, and implemented.
The matter was dropped by Congress after the hearings.
However, this attempt and its outcome are illuminating.
There is also more
recent evidence that the U.S.
citizens want their right to vote on United States Initiatives. The
reported a 1994 poll showing 64 percent of those interviewed favored a national referendum.
The record of the 103rd Congress in 1994 shows considerable interest in the subject,
especially in regard to term limits, balanced budget, and line item veto issues.
These issues had been supported by many respected public policy organizations
Citizens Against Government Waste,
National Tax Limitation Committee,
United We Stand America, etc.
However, Congress as a whole was disinclined to pursue these matters
at that time.
There are many recent and current members of
Congress who have expressed strong support for various forms of nationwide
Initiatives and Referendum. The efforts by Senator
Mike Gravel (Alaska
1969-1981) are in progress. He founded Philadelphia II and Direct
Democracy, the nonprofit entities leading the effort. A
Democracy Amendment is currently proposed
for electronic voting using People's rights
inferred from Article
VII of the Constitution. The scope of the Democracy Amendment is more
far-reaching than this Solution but is administered by an organization of elected
for more details.
In the U.S., all the States submit
legislatively-derived State constitutional amendment referendums to a vote of
the people except for
Delaware, which has
used legislative but not constitutional referendums.
24 States have an initiative process whereby if
citizens can collect sufficient signatures they may place a question or
referendum for popular vote. In many cases this covers constitutional rather
than law issues, and in others the initiative is indirect because it has to go
to the legislature before it is put to the people. However, in 14 States, direct
initiative statutes permit laws proposed by signature petition of the people to
be directly placed on the ballot as a referendum for voter approval or rejection (I&R
The number of signatures needed to qualify the petition
averages about eight percent of the votes cast for governor in the preceding
election, but varies widely up to 15 percent of the gubernatorial vote and down
to two percent of the voting-age population. In California, with a population of
about 35 million people, the number of signature required for a direct
initiative on a law is about 420,000; for a State constitutional amendment about
670,000; and 890,000 signatures were required for Governor Davis' recall.
Signature gatherers were paid
.75 to 1.00 dollars per
signature, and the cost of the signature drive pro and con was estimated at
four million dollars. As the
recall gathered momentum, the GOP supporters privately funded an aggressive
media promotion, the cost of which is probably unknowable. For reference, $90
million was spent on the gubernatorial race in 2002; the candidates spent about
$90 million; the
special recall election cost to the State was about
$30 million. When the final numbers
become available, the expenditures will probably turn out to have been larger.
2004 elections, about $400 million was spent on 59 state initiatives in 18
states and on average is cost about $12 million to qualify and advance an
initiative and $6 million to oppose it.
The most frequent use of initiatives and referendums has been in ancient Athens
(city population 100,000) and modern Switzerland (population 7,300,000), both
small democracies by today's standards. In both cases, they were largely drafted by
the participants. In both cases the
countries achieved extreme prosperity despite modest natural resources and,
considering the extraordinary chaos going on around them, relative peace.
A referendum initiated solely by a Government in a
highly-charged emotional crisis can be dangerous, and is subject to
manipulation and propaganda by the Government. It is desirable to have a
deliberative process to review any rash decisions.
In most countries and many States, Government is closely
involved with drafting the referendums, and exerts much influence on the
The U.S. Congress has not allowed even Government-initiated
Direct initiatives in all cases except Athens involve obtaining a large numbers of
signatures, investing much time and effort, and financing substantial expenditures before an
initiative can be put on the ballot.