Despise the Initiative Process? New York City Shows Why Progressives Need ItRandy Shawbyline‚ Oct. 27‚ 2009What do Governor Schwarzenegger, the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, labor activists, land use reformers, and many progressives have in common? All blame ballot initiatives for California’s current problems. California’s budget crisis has spawned such outrage over the initiative process that there is talk about new restrictions, with many progressives concluding that a onetime populist process has become a tool for the powerful to control policy. Fortunately, New York City provides a case study of a large, ethnically diverse, California-like entity where citizen ballot measures are not an option. The result? A profoundly undemocratic city where large real estate developers call the shots. Progressives who attack “ballot box planning” and other uses of the initiative process should look at what happens to NYC neighborhoods that have no ability to stop or even influence the most destructive of development schemes. Most of these projects could never happen in San Francisco or other California localities – because the public’s access to ballot initiatives prevents them. |