Legislative Response to Direct Legislation

Abstract

Current scholarly knowledge suggests that direct legislation affects policy making in various ways.¹ One way is directly, when voters pass laws by initiative or referendum. A second way is indirectly, when legislators or other policy-makers respond to the threat of, or act in anticipation of, initiatives or referendums. Many recent studies have advanced our understanding of direct effects by analyzing what types of policies voters pass by initiative and referendum. For example, Tolbert (1998) notes that many laws passed by direct legislation involve governance policies that regulate elected officials. Schrag (1998) claims that middle-class white voters use direct legislation to pass conservative fiscal and social legislation in the US states. Gerber (1999) shows that broad-based citizen groups use direct legislation to pass majoritarian policies. Gamble (1997) argues that citizens use direct legislation to take away legislative protections for minorities, although Donovan and Bowler (1998b) and Frey and Goette (1998) claim that the effects on minorities are much less detrimental than Gamble asserts.