Initiative Use, 1904-2005
Since the first statewide initiative appeared on Oregon’s ballot in 1904 through 2005, citizens in the 24 states with the initiative process have placed 2,153 statewide measures on the ballot and have adopted 877 (41%). The average number of initiatives on statewide ballots each two-year election cycle during this period is 42. The average number of initiatives on the ballot each election cycle between 1980-1989 is 49 and between 1990-1999 the number is 76. Therefore, since 1904 an average of 1.8 initiatives have appeared on each state’s ballot each election cycle (based on the fact that only 24 states have the statewide initiative process). That number is 2.1 for the 1980s and 3.2 for the 1990s.
Although 24 states have the statewide initiative process, 60% of all initiative activity has taken place in just six states – Arizona, California, Colorado, North Dakota, Oregon and Washington.
Only a fraction of initiatives that are filed actually make it to the ballot. In California, according to political scientist Dave McCuan, only 26% of all initiatives filed have made it to the ballot and only 8% of those filed actually were adopted by the voters. During the 2000 election cycle, over 350 initiatives were filed in the 24 initiative states and 76 made the ballot – about 22%.
The initiative process has been through periods of tremendous use as well as periods in which it was rarely utilized. Initiative usage steadily declined from its peak of 271 from 1910-1919 to a low of 98 in 1960-1969. Many factors contributed to this, but the distraction of two World Wars, the Great Depression and the Korean War are largely responsible. However, in 1978, with the passage of California’s Proposition 13, the people began to realize the power of the initiative process once again and its use began to climb. Since 1978, two of the three most prolific decades of initiative use have occurred, 1980-1989 (247 initiatives) and 1990-1999 (379 initiatives). In 1996, the “high water mark” for the use of the initiative process, the citizens placed 93 initiatives on statewide ballots and adopted 39 (42%). In contrast, that year, state legislators in those same 24 states adopted over 14,000 laws and resolutions.
The number of initiatives appearing on ballot since 1996 has held constant at about 70 per two-year cycle. In 1998, 61 statewide initiatives made the ballot - the fewest in a decade for an even-numbered year. In 2000 a total of 76 initiatives found their way to statewide ballots. There were 51 in 2002, and 67 in 2004. Initiative use does not seem to have accelerated over the last decade, but neither it is dropping off. Numbers are much lower in odd numbered election years is that the constitutions of only five states allow initiatives in the odd years – Colorado, Maine, Mississippi, Ohio and Washington State.
IRI report on initiative use, 1904-2005 (Updated November 2006)