“We’re obviously a one-party state, so this process takes on even more importance to be a check and balance,” said Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable. “If we lose that ability, it is going to dramatically hurt California and the future for all sides.”
“It is becoming more intertwined,” said former Public Policy Institute of California director Mark Baldassare, who is writing a book on the topic. “The ultimate challenge is: How much does it cost, in a state with 22 million voters to collect the signatures, and who’s really capable of qualifying something for the ballot?”two landmark laws illustrate the loop between the Legislature and the ballot box.
“The Legislature in California has become more Democratic and more progressive over time,” said International Franchise Association vice president for state and local government relations Jeff Hanscom, and “as policies get more and more offensive to everyday citizens, they deserve a say in that.” “It’s not like the business community does not have a voice, does not have members of the Legislature that are sympathetic,” Holden said in an interview. “I can see where someone wants to go to war because ‘My god, nobody listens to us, we can’t get anything done, no one’s taking our ideas and putting them into our bills’ — that’s what we did.”
“When you’re discussing ‘leverage plays,’ which we discuss all the time now, that is very different,” said Gale Kaufman, a longtime Democratic ballot strategist. Many business groups, Kaufman added, “don’t want to put it on the ballot. They want you to come to the table.”