Power Of Initiatives

Bridges, Amy and Kouser argues that progressives behaved as strategic politicians by supporting direct democracy when they were hindered at achieving their goals in the legislature and were confident that the voters who would be empowered by initiatives agreed with progressive policies. The American people value their initiatives—they have never permitted a state to repeal their initiative power. Long before the Amendment is eventually adopted, the people can enact state-level testing and refinement of the new initiative process. For remaining doubters, and because all change may have unforeseeable consequences, the Amendment includes its own repeal option to return to exactly what we have now. Today, 70 percent of US Citizens can vote on state and local initiatives. …show more content…
The second method does not require Congressional support—the Framers of our Constitution specifically included it to remedy excessive Congressional corruption. The People’s power of initiatives is extended to the Federal level—giving the people direct control over Congressional legislation, rules, perquisites, modus operandi, etc. Though the people can handle only a small portion of the volume of Congressional business, they can permanently prevent or mitigate the most harmful Congressional actions and force Congress to act for the Nation's and the people’s benefit. The power to handle the volume of proposed initiatives and select (i.e., qualify) which candidate initiatives go on the ballot is granted to a super grand jury of 500 who are responsible only to the People and well protected from outside