PACKET EDITORIAL, July 22
By: Packet Editorial
We’ve never been big fans of California-style initiative and referendum. It seems to us many of the public questions that have found their way onto the California ballot over the years repealing fair-housing laws, banning cable television, slashing property taxes, ending bilingual education, abolishing racial preferences and, most recently, recalling the governor are better answered by elected representatives in a deliberative setting than by voters in the voting booth.
We’re not suggesting there’s no place in a representative democracy for initiative and referendum. If citizens are aggrieved by the actions of their representatives, or want their government to take action that elected officials are hesitant or unwilling to take, putting a question directly to the voters may be the most appropriate way to deal with the matter. In California, however, it’s simply too easy to get a question on the ballot; the number of signatures needed is so small it invites special interests and single-issue groups to circumvent the legislative process and take their often-emotional campaign directly to the voters.
What brings this issue to mind is not the movement to oust California Gov. Gray Davis from office. It’s the movement in Princeton Township to get a branch library at the Princeton Shopping Center on the November ballot, and the movement before that in Princeton Borough to submit the controversial downtown garage project to the voters in referendum. While it may be too easy to get a question on the ballot in California, it is way too difficult to get one on the ballot in Princeton Township and Princeton Borough. In fact, it’s impossible without the approval of the governing body which more or less defeats the whole purpose of referendum.
Like most people including, we suspect, the folks who’ve been collecting signatures on the petitions to put the library question on the township ballot, and the folks before them who collected the petitions to put the garage question on the borough ballot we were under the impression that if supporters could gather signatures equaling 10 percent of those who voted in the last Assembly election in support of a question, it would automatically go on the ballot. Not so. Under New Jersey’s Optional Municipal Charter Law (the so-called Faulkner Act), Princeton Township and Princeton Borough both have a form of government under which the governing body and the governing body alone has the authority to place a public question on the ballot.
(There is an exception to this rule for the issuance of bonds. A municipal bond ordinance may be subject to referendum if 10 percent of the voters sign petitions to place the issue on the ballot. There is an exception to this exception, however, if the bond issue is for a site designated an area in need of redevelopment. Thus, the bonds issued for the borough’s downtown garage project could not be challenged by petition.)
We happen to favor the garage project, and we happen to think a branch library at the shopping center isn’t an especially good idea at this time. But if enough residents of either community feel otherwise, we feel there should be some mechanism for them to get the issue on the ballot. The 10-percent threshold that applies in municipalities governed by the Faulkner Act (including West Windsor, Hamilton and Trenton) may be way too low, but as it stands now, gathering the signatures of 50 or 75 or even 100 percent of voters in non-Faulkner municipalities still isn’t enough to get a question on the ballot and that’s just plain ridiculous.
What’s the right threshold? We’re not sure, but we think a task force of state, county and municipal officials, along with interested civic groups, should take a long, hard look at this question. We’re pretty sure they’ll find a suitable answer somewhere between the extremes of California and Princeton.