Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T07:38:22.638Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Direct Legislation: Some Implications of Open Housing Referenda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Howard D. Hamilton
Howard D. Hamilton*
Affiliation:
Bowling Green State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Any middle-aged member of the political science guild in a retrospective mood might ponder a question: “What ever happened to direct democracy?” In our halcyon student days the textbooks discussed the direct democracy trinity—initiative, referendum, and recall—described their mechanics and variations, explained their origin in the Progressive Era, told us that the United States, Australia, and Switzerland were leading practitioners of direct democracy, cited a few eccentric referenda, gave the standard pro and con arguments, and essayed some judgments of the relative merits of direct and representative democracy. Latter day collegians may pass through the portals innocent of the existence of the institutions of direct government. Half of the American government texts never mention the subject; the others allocate a paragraph or a page for a casual mention or a barebones explanation of the mechanics.

A similar trend has occurred in the literature. Before 1921, every volume of this Review had items on the referendum, five in one volume. Subsequently there have been only seven articles, all but two prior to World War II. “The Initiative and Referendum in Graustark” has ceased to be a fashionable dissertation topic, only four in the last thirty years. All but two of the published monographs antedate World War II.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 64 , Issue 1 , March 1970 , pp. 124 - 137
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1970

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Of a dozen current American government taxes examined, four allocate a page to “direct democracy,” three a paragraph or two, and five never mention the topic. State and local texts usually give it more attention.

2 Listed in the Cumulative Index of the American Political Science Review, 1908–1983, p. 87.

3 Unpublished doctoral dissertations: Van Eaton, Anson, The Initiative and Referendum in Missouri (Missouri, 1955)Google Scholar, Best, Wallace H., Initiative and Referendum Politics in California (So. Calif., 1956)Google Scholar, Rosenbaum, Walter, Legislative Participation in California (Princeton, 1964)Google Scholar, Goldsmith, Jack, The Role of the Initiative as a Tactic of Interest Group Politics in California, (UCLA, 1966)Google Scholar.

4 LaPalombara, Joseph G., A Study of the Initiative and Referendum in Oregon (Corvallis, 1950)Google Scholar, Boskoff, Alvin and Zeigler, Harmon, Voting Patterns in a Local Election (Philadelphia, 1964)Google Scholar.

5 Plaut, Thomas A. F., “Analysis of Voting Behavior in a Flouridation Referendum,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 23 (1959), 213–222;CrossRefGoogle ScholarGamson, William, “The Flouridation Dialogue,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 25 (1961), 526–537;CrossRefGoogle ScholarHorton, John and Thompson, Wayne, “Powerlessness and Political Negativism,” American Journal of Sociology, 67 (1962), 485–493;CrossRefGoogle ScholarDill, E. L. and Ridley, J. C., “Status, Anomie, Political Alienation and Political Participation,” American Journal of Sociology, 68 (1962), 205–213;Google ScholarStone, Clarence, “Local Referendums; An Alternative to the Alienated Voter Model,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 29 (1965), 213–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Agger, Robertet al, The Rulers and the Ruled (New York, 1964)Google Scholar, Presthus, Robert V., Men at the Top (New York, 1964)Google Scholar, Williams, Oliver and Adrian, Charles, Four Cities: A Study of Comparative Policy-Making (Philadelphia, 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Wilson, James Q. and Banfield, Edward C., “Public Regardingness as a Value in Voting Behavior,” this Review, 58 (1964), 876–887Google Scholar.

8 Watson, Richard and Romani, John, “Metropolitan Government in Cleveland,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 5 (1961), 365–390CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ducey, John M., Who Killed the Urban Renewal Bond Issue? (Loyala University Center for Research in Urban Government, 1966)Google Scholar.

9 Boskoff and Zeigler, op. cit. The open housing studies are cited in footnote 16.

10 Ohio Election Statistics, 1957–58.

11 A national sample of school referenda reports that the sample of 583 districts had 2,630 referenda in the decade, 1948–1959, which produces an annual national average of 13,000 school referenda for that period. Subsequent consolidation of districts has reduced the number but not the significance of school referenda. A. F. Carter and W. G. Savard, Influence of Voter Turnout on School Bond and Tax Elections (Office of Education, 1961), p. 10.

12 The substance and fate of Ohio State Issues One and Two, May, 1967.

13 Banfield, Edward C., Political Influence (New York, 1961)Google Scholar.

14 Local officialdom is not grateful for the “permissive taxes” recently authorized by the Ohio General Assembly.

15 Tabulated by Bone, Hugh A., “Easier to Change,” National Civic Review, 57 (1968), 120CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Casstevens, T. W., California's Rumford Act and Proposition 14 and the Defeat of Berkeley's Fair Housing Ordinance, pamphlets published by Institute of Governmental Studies, Univ. of Calif.Google Scholar; Wolfinger, Raymond E. and Greenstein, Fred I., “The Repeal of Fair Housing in California: An Analysis of Referendum Voting,” this Review, 62 (1968), 753–769Google Scholar.

17 Two hundred eight clusters of three housing units were drawn systematically. A randomizing device was used to spot the cluster within each clock and another to select the interviewee. Interviews were completed in all but one cluster, two in most, with a completion rate of 76%, exclusive of vacancies and razed areas.

18 Campbell, Anguset al, The American Voter (New York, 1960), pp. 89–115Google Scholar.

19 School fiscal issues comprise about three-fourths of all referenda. The mean turnout at school fiscal referenda was 36.3% of eligible voters in the 1948–1959 period. Carter and Savard, op. cit., 12. Turnout rates on four fiscal referenda in upstate New York towns ranged from 7% to 45%. Presthus, R. V., Men at the Top (New York, 1964), 259–261Google Scholar.

20 Campbell et al, loc cit.

21 The Berkeley turnout of registered voters was slightly higher in census tracts with over half Negro residents than in other tracts, but the data furnish no measure of how many Negroes were unregistered. T. W. Casstevens, op cit., 87. Most Negroes were not registered for the Toledo referendum.

22 See items in footnote 5.

23 Long, Norton, “Bureaucracy and Constitutionalism,” 56 (1952), this Review, 56 (1952), 810Google Scholar.

24 Lazarsfeld, Paulet al, The People's Choice (New York, 1944), chs. 8–10Google Scholar.

25 Wolfinger and Greenstein, op. cit., 758.

26 Casstevens, op. cit., 79.

27 Campbell et al, op cit., 76.

28 Pollock, James K., The Initiative and Referendum in Michigan (Ann Arbor, 1940), pp. 66–70Google Scholar.

29 See Wolfinger and Greenstein, op. cit., 768–769.

30 There are some authentic instances in the Ohio archives.

31 Simon, Herbert, Administrative Behavior (New York, 1947), ch. 9Google Scholar.

32 Eg., Wildavsky, Aaron, The Politics of the Budgetary Process (Boston, 1964)Google Scholar.

33 Harris, Joseph P., California Politics, 4th ed. (San Francisco, 1967), p. 112Google Scholar. A recent study of voting patterns on California referenda by examination of absentee ballots furnishes data that reflect voter ignorance (only 53% voted on all propositions and the average abstention rate was 15% per proposition) and some confusion. On two antithetical propositions regarding a state lottery, only 47% voted consistently, 45% voted partially or completely contradictorily. Mueller, John E., “Reason and Caprice: Voting on Propositions” (ms, 1968)Google Scholar.

34 Only 44% of the membership knew of the UAW union's endorsement despite 15 articles in the union organ. Lyons, Schley R., “Labor in City Politics: The Case of the Toledo United Auto Workers,” (paper at 1968 meeting of Ohio Association of Political Scientists)Google Scholar.

35 The electorate's ignorance was partially because the strategy of council candidates, except the anti-FHO ones, was to avoid the issue like a plague.

36 There were parallels between the 1964 California election and the Toledo city election. The Republican mayor that championed FHO was defeated by the Democratic challenger who found technical flaws in the ordinance during the primary and campaigned valiantly against crime in the streets.

37 Lazarsfeld et al, op. cit., ch. 14.

38 Campbell et al, op. cit., 60.

39 Lyons, op. cit.

40 Berelson, Bernardet al, Voting (Chicago, 1954), ch. 10Google Scholar.

41 Downs, Anthony, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York, 1957), pp. 207–276Google Scholar.

42 Lazarsfeld et al, op. cit., chs. 5. 14; Berelson et al, op. cit., ch. 11.

43 Responses to the query about the attitudes of neighbors were:

44 About 30% of the sample reported receiving handbills.

45 Lazarsfeld et al, op. cit., 45–49.

46 Lyons' survey of the UAW, whose leaders plumped for FHO in the Union Journal, reports that although 44% of the membership were aware of the union's endorsement, only 29% favored FHO. But union influence was visible: 60% of Caucasians scoring high on a pro-union political orientation scale favored FHO but only 28% of the Lows favored it. Lyons, op. cit.

47 T. W. Casstevens, op. cit., 57–62.

48 See citations in footnotes 5 and 7.

49 Miller, Delbert C., “The Prediction of Issue Outcome in Decision-Making,” Proceedings of the Pacific Sociological Society, 25 (1957), 117–197Google Scholar; Hanson, Robert C., “Predicting a Community Decision: A Test of the Miller-Form Theory,” American Sociological Review, 24 (1959), 662–676CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 In Ohio from 1960 to 1968, 48% of school bond proposals and 25% of school operating levies were defeated. Memorandum of Ohio Education Association.

51 Typical of mass rejection of civic elite aspirations was the simultaneous rejection by the Lansing electorate of a bond issue for a civic center and an ambitious scheme for incorporating the hinterland township, April, 1953. For an account of the repeated defeats at the polls of elite efforts to establish metropolitan government in Cleveland and St. Louis, see Watson and Romani, op. cit., and Greer, Scott, Governing the Metropolis (New York, 1962)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Greer asserts that the fundamental obstacle to rationalizing the political structures of metropolitan areas is Jacksonian notions of self-determination, exemplified and enforced by the referendum.

52 Banfield, Edward D. and Wilson, James Q., City Politics (New York, 1963), p. 324Google Scholar; Burns, James M. and Peltason, Jack W., Government by the People (Englewood Cliffs, 1966), p. 721Google Scholar.

53 John C. Mueller, op. cit.

54 Christenson, Reo M., “The Power of the Press—The Case of the Toledo Blade,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 3 (1959), 227–240CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The Blade deviated from its characteristic enthusiasm for civil rights, because its editors perceived that the city elites could not win the referendum. Its aloofness, except for a lame last minute endorsement, was a great blow to the FHO proponents and a self-fulfilling prophecy.

55 The approval rate of school tax levy and bond referenda in Ohio is higher in general elections than in primaries and specials. Thus a school levy is defeated in May and wins in November. Cf. Marlowe, Byron H., “An Explanation of Voter Behavior in Tax Elections” (paper, 1969 meeting, American Educational Research Association)Google Scholar.

56 Cf. Kendall, Willmoore and Carey, George W., “The ‘Intensity’ Problem and Democratic Theory,” this Review, 62 (1968), 5–24Google Scholar.

57 Op. cit., 768.

58 The items were: Attitudes Regarding Referenda

Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.