Direct Democracy During the Progressive Era: A Crack in the Populist Veneer?

Since its inaugural use in Oregon in 1904, direct democracy—as practiced in twenty-seven American states—has garnered its share of defenders and critics. ¹ While the debate over the merits and drawbacks of citizen lawmaking remains as contentious as ever, critics and proponents alike usually concur that two extra-legislative tools—the "citizen" initiative and the "popular" referendum—were most effectively used to counteract the legislative might of special interests during the Progressive Era. ² Citing the clout of corporate monopolies that dominated numerous state legislatures at the turn of the century, contemporary observers of direct democracy approvingly note how citizen groups during the Progressive Era used the mechanisms to take on an array of vested interests. As evidence, they submit the popular adoption of numerous progressive reforms during the 1910s, such as the direct primary, women's suffrage, prohibition, the abolition of the poll tax, home rule for cities and towns, eight-hour workdays for women and miners, and the regulation of public utility and railroad monopolies. ³ Circumventing their partisan state legislatures, defenders of the plebiscitary mechanisms evoke how citizens successfully employed the initiative and popular referendum, as one Progressive Era supporter of the "pure" democratic process championed, to rouse "a great forward movement toward stability, justice, and public spirit in American political institutions." ⁴

While differing in their final assessments of the present-day practice of direct democracy, journalists and scholars tend to paint the same exalted portrait of the early usage of the initiative and popular referendum in the American states. Journalists critical of the process especially draw on the Progressive Era to justify how the practice of direct democracy today seems distinctly different from that of yesteryear. Placing the modern-day process in stark contrast with its nascent use, they write wistfully of the days when direct democracy was controlled by "the people." Invoking an idyllic view of the past, Washington Post pundit David Broder writes how "the initiative process has largely discarded its grass-roots origins," as it is "no longer merely the province of idealistic volunteers." ⁵ Rather than citizen groups utilizing the initiative and referendum process, Broder reveals how narrow economic interests now dominate the process. Similarly, Peter Schrag, the former editor of the Sacramento Bee, observes how special interests in California "are themselves running and/or bankrolling ballot measures to advance their economic agendas." For Schrag, "the people's remedy" has been co-opted by "'the interests'—the insurance industry, the tobacco companies, the trial lawyers, public employee unions." ⁶

Whether arguing that direct democracy has become corrupted by special interests or that it continues to be a viable expression of the "vox populi," numerous scholars also contend that the Progressive Era implementation of direct democracy indeed met its intended "populist" purpose. In his often-quoted historical account, David Schmidt finds that Progressive Era direct legislation served as "a safeguard against the concentration of political power in the hands of a few." ⁷ Likewise, Joseph Zimmerman contends that business organizations, with the exceptions of "beverages firms, horseracing, and prizefight promoters—made very little use of the initiative" during the Progressive Era. Rather, he asserts that the initial proponents of ballot measures "sought to make the state legislature more responsive to the citizenry by promoting what they believed to be essential reforms." ⁸ Elisabeth Gerber, another scholar generally sympathetic toward the process, contends that the "populist paradox"—"the alleged transformation of direct legislation from a tool of regular citizens to a tool of special interests"—is actually illusory. She maintains that economic interest groups today are "severely constrained" in their ability to wield influence over the process. The premise of her argument (and indeed, the title of her book) rests on the implicit assumption that the initiative process was at one time under the aegis of citizen groups. ⁹ Embedded...