Fake Some Initiative

If you live in one of the 26 states that allows citizen initiatives on the ballot, have you noticed anything odd about the issues themselves or the people championing those ideas?

I've certainly felt uneasy for a while... but it wasn't until foie gras agitprop started choking DC streets that it clicked for me. Turns out, many measures aren't the organic grassroots campaigns they're made out to be. Quite to the contrary, ballot initiatives are often NGO vehicles designed to spread niche goals across the land while simultaneously getting mercenaries paid annually.

Run Afowl

Let's talk turkey. I want to make it crystal clear that I am no fan of sticking tubes down the throats of birds (or any creature, for that matter). According to Pro Animal DC, the outfit behind the animal welfare movement known as Initiative 86, this culinary-driven procedure leads to "mortality rates (that) are up to nineteen times higher than non-force-fed birds." Even if their math is off by a factor of ten, I'd still side with their premise.

But just because I support the sentiment doesn't mean I agree with the org's political methods. Given that exactly zero places engage in gavage within the borders of the District of Columbia and only a few dozen restaurants here offer foie gras as a regular menu item, is a ballot initiative really necessary? Surely there's a less complicated way to accomplish this particular objective beyond struggling to gather around 25,000 signatures...

Goal Rush

There's the rub. This group posing as a "collective of voters, volunteers, and small donors" is merely the local chapter of Pro-Animal Future, a Boulder-based national 501(c)(4) conducting carbon copy crusades from coast to coast. They're utilizing the playbook that worked in Denver, and ever so slightly adjusting the language to fit DC. Heck, they're even using the same recruits! Colorado petition circulators have been transported to the nation's capital, per reporting.

[Interestingly, when the preexisting DC Coalition Against Foie Gras allegedly protested inside a local eatery, those insurgents were represented by lawyers from the University of Denver Animal Activist Defense Project. This naturally begs the question: how deep does this pipeline go?]

These paratroopers aren't necessarily doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. Money determines whether a huge chunk of the personnel will show up or not. For example, O'Keefe Media Group documented shady Skid Row voter registration activities by paid canvassers, including monetary and in-kind kickbacks. Similar shenanigans were caught on camera in San Francisco two weeks ago. Elsewhere in America, each squiggle can fetch amounts ranging from a couple of bucks to twenty dollars in locales with stricter distribution requirements.

Earning potential of that magnitude explains how stuff as random as goose liver winds up on the ballot. It's also the major reason that something far more ludicrous might get an up/down vote in Oregon. Initiative Petition 28, an effort to criminalize hunting and fishing (plus various aspects of meat, egg, and dairy production), has already submitted over 138,000 signatures. Do you think that could have happened without financial sweeteners for clipboard toters?

Perennial Payday

At the risk of stating the obvious, this year's mobilizations are no aberration. Each new calendar brings with it another wave of resolutions capable of enriching reformers. This doesn't just happen; it's the result of a handful of radical souls ensuring the gravy train comes back to town. *

In DC, for instance, there's a good chance one of two names will be linked to any new initiative: Nikolas Schiller and/or Adam Eidinger. Schiller has had his fingerprints on 2014's marijuana measure, 2020's magic mushroom effort, and 2022's minimum wage hike for tipped workers. Eidinger has been attached to those undertakings via his PR firm called Mintwood Strategies.

To that end, I was not shocked to find Pro Animal DC advertising a June poster palooza primary preparation event at Mintwood's Embassy Row address. It's unclear whether the staff that arrived that day were directly associated with Mintwood (like the 150+ circulators hired and trained for Initiative 81**) or were simply borrowing the space. Regardless, the connection exists. Again.

Systemic Scheme

This blueprint now appears inevitable in the half of the country where the process is permitted. Dane Waters, longtime kingpin at the Initiative and Referendum Institute (IRI) has spent the last three decades defending the model. Harkening back to its golden age (when individual states beat the federal government to the punch on women's suffrage) enables him to brush off the sleaziness of incentivizing signature gathering. Waters' colleague John Matsusaka, a USC professor who was handed the IRI baton, also excuses the concept of paid collection by noting how the controversial exchange has existed in some capacity since Teddy Roosevelt. ***

Both men concur with the prevailing belief that the modern era of the "initiative industry" gathered steam in the late 1970s. Prop 13, a California measure to rein in property tax rates, proved it was possible for the public to bypass politicians unwilling to act. Unfortunately, it also jumpstarted what was a nascent consultant class. Eventually, the flood gates were blown wide open by the horrendous Citizens Untied decision in 2010. It's no coincidence that initiative insanity has become an epidemic since then. The dark money flowing in and out of super PACs can theoretically hire an army for each ballot battle they choose to wage.

Resistance Is Futile

Putting the genie back in the bottle is as difficult as it sounds. Lord knows some Southern states have tried. Florida has cracked down on circulators. Arkansas tightened up rules on both sides of the equation. Oklahoma is currently venturing to go the extra mile by outlawing bread-and-butter petitioner payment techniques. Yet there's no guarantee these commonsense steps will withstand the lawfare and pressure mounted by leftist operations that liken election security to "scare tactics."

The citizen-initiative-industrial complex also has no compunction about casting "corporate interests" as the villains while their own NGOs wear sheep's clothing to hide their lupine nature. In Montana, the state Chamber of Commerce appealed to their Supreme Court to quash residents' attempt to circumvent Citizens United. When that didn't work, the Chamber begged for signatories to withdraw their endorsement. ****

National voices like John Matsusaka aren't much different. When discussing the groundswell behind the seminal Prop 13, he chalked it up to voters wanting to "think a little bit about how we're spending money;" as if the default is to empower bureaucratic spending without ending. He then went on to say Californians' desire to limit assessments "hit it with a sledgehammer" when "we'd rather have the legislature go in there and do a nuance sort of thing." Okay buddy!

Final Vote

With experts this out of touch, it's not hard to surmise why the "money in the initiative process is drastically increasing." Schemers are getting wealthy from it, which begets more cash infusions.

Wyoming governor Mark Gordon gives perhaps the best description of these interests. They "bring BS pieces of legislation that try to fix things that aren't a problem in Wyoming... but it's not about that; it's about planting this flag so they can show their national fundraising team."

If we don't denounce profiteering pollsters immediately, we're going to soon look up and realize they've hacked much of the democracy they pretend to hold so dear. By that point, foie gras will be the least of our concerns. *****

Note: this post may contain commentary reflecting the author's opinion.

This site does not render legal advice, nor does it intend to replace legal advice.

* The extremist in Oregon looking to cease animal cruelty by forbidding virtually every aspect of human interaction with fauna (including rodeos and pest control), tried analogous approaches in 2022 and 2024.

** In textbook fashion, pro-fungi organizing in DC followed Denver's Ordinance 301 formula... although Eidinger added a feather in his infamous Phrygian cap when the DC Council absurdly approved mail-in and electronic petition submission.

*** Dane Waters would fit right in with the RINOs I profiled in February. On top of all the globalist garbage, he orchestrated a national convention wrench. Is it possible he so desperately wants to come off as a Republican that he heads an elephant protection charity?

**** Full disclosure: part of me wonders if, in this particular case, the Montanans 'doing the right thing' are the real bad guys. Reports claim their submission ignores out-of-state and PAC money. Is that an oversight or a compromise or was it part of 'The Montana Plan' along? By the way, it's also transpiring in the same election as Initiative 133, a full-throated push to -- ahem -- "simplify" procedural safeguards related to initiatives (led by this social justice warrior), to boot.

***** One strategy could be to insist upon unimpeachable vetting of signatures. I'm not suggesting adding additional codes (although I'm not opposed to that), only condoning tighter scrutiny. Almost 30% of the names on Denver's foie gras paperwork were either rejected or unconfirmed. Regarding I-81 in DC, the Board of Elections concluded there were (barely) enough valid identities to certify after glimpsing a subset of the data. Not ideal! Getting administrators to strive for excellence can counteract dodgy canvassing campaigns.

DC had its own (paid) petition circulator signup form that covered multiple initiatives