Camden: How initiatives make it to ballot a cause for concern

The group dropped off about 360,000 signatures earlier this month, which comes out to about $7.77 per John Hancock, mostly paid to AAP Holding Co. of Westlake, Calif.

The carbonated beverage industry also turned to AAP to get the signatures for Initiative 1634, which would prevent local governments from imposing taxes on soda (and also groceries, although no local government has suggested taxing groceries).

Actually, the Yes to Affordable Groceries organization hired the Dewey Square Group — a Washington, D.C., public affairs group whose motto is “Win Public Support” — and they hired AAP, which was paid more than $2.5 million to gather signatures for I-1634. So that would be a win-win, for the political industry at least.

AAP also gathered the bulk of the paid signatures for the carbon fee being proposed in Initiative 1631. It got most of the $832,000 paid out by Clean Air Clean Energy, although a Seattle firm did pick up $30,000 for “signature gathering consulting.”

That may be a new profession for college graduates to consider if their chosen field isn’t hiring. You wouldn’t have to actually go get the signatures, just consult with campaigns on where they might be gotten.

Signature gathering companies don’t keep all that money, of course. They pay contractors who pay subcontractors who stand in front of supermarkets or set up tables at political rallies or wander through community events, clipboards in hand.

Many of them have copies of many different ballot proposals, so a person who balks at a government-imposed carbon fee to clean up the environment might be a good candidate to sign the latest Tim Eyman initiative, an oldie but goodie on $30 license tabs.

Odd practice for democracy

Some of the money actually trickles down to Washington folks holding clipboards, although some signature gatherers work a circuit that takes them from state to state based on filing deadlines, sort of like itinerant farm workers following a harvest of signatures.

Citizen Solutions, a Washington signature-gathering company, has collected $300,000 so far for the Eyman proposal, which has a December deadline.

It also got some $380,000 from business interests that think state and local governments should negotiate with their employee unions in public, but that initiative didn’t come close to getting the necessary signatures. Was it just not popular, or didn’t they spend enough?

At the risk of sounding old, time was when $380,000 could buy you a spot on the ballot. Initiative 1000, concerning assisted suicide, made the ballot in 2008 for less than that. What is the world coming to?

The initiative process was designed as a way for the people to rise up when their legislators weren’t listening to them, and enact laws that their lawmakers wouldn’t. It has become a process for well-heeled organizations — businesses, unions or special interest groups — to pay big guns to hire smaller guns to get their ideas on the ballot.

That’s an odd way to practice democracy.